


The Experiment

by comeaftermejackrobinson



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Anorexia, Borderline Personality Disorder, Bulimia, Character Analysis, Character Study, Depression, Drama, Eating Disorders, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gen, Masturbation, Past Drug Use, Post-Season/Series 01 AU, Season/Series 01, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2018-09-30 17:31:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 119,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10168142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comeaftermejackrobinson/pseuds/comeaftermejackrobinson
Summary: She tells herself she’s doing this because she wants to achieve perfection. (He wouldn't want anything that wasn't perfect, therefore she needs to be perfect for him to want her. It’s only logical.) She knows that once she does, absolutely every little thing will have been worth the effort she’s putting into this.And perhaps then he will notice her. Perhaps then she will be good enough for him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

A cup of nonfat milk is 91 calories.

 

An ounce of apple, raw, without skin, preferably grated, has 14 calories.

 

100 ml of fresh orange juice are only 47 calories.

 

On even days she drinks a cup of nonfat milk and eats an ounce of grated apple for breakfast. On odd days she drinks 100 ml of fresh orange juice and has two tablespoons of regular oats, cooked with water (there are 10 calories in a tablespoon).

  
100 grams of raw butterhead lettuce are 13 calories.

 

Four slices of tomato, 0.25'' thick (0.7 ounces) each, are 14 calories.

 

50 grams of white rice cooked without salt are 65 calories.

 

There are 41 calories in 100 grams of carrots, raw.

 

8.6 ounces of mashed pumpkins are 49 calories.

 

50 grams of mashed potatoes, home prepared, with whole milk and margarine, are 56 calories.

 

On Mondays and Fridays she eats lettuce and tomato salad for lunch. Tuesdays and Thursdays she eats mashed pumpkins or mashed potatoes. On Wednesdays, it's rice and carrots.

 

(Every time any of her coworkers comment on how small her meals are, she quickly finishes the conversation by stating she is more of a big breakfast person than a big lunch person. And then she changes the subject).

 

There are 32 calories in 100 grams of grapefruit.

 

A container of plain Greek yogurt is 100 calories.

 

That's her dinner on even days.

 

On odd days, she has two large leaves of cabbage (16 calories), three ounces of spinach (20 calories), and half a cup of chopped broccoli (55 calories).

 

She weights every intake of food and writes the numbers down in a little notebook she keeps in her purse.

 

She doesn’t eat anything she hasn’t prepared herself.

 

She doesn’t eat anything if it’s not been weighted first.

 

One single slice of wheat bread is 78 calories. A very thin slice of white bread is 40 calories. So she no longer eats bread. She doesn't eat sandwiches or pasta, either. She doesn't eat pizza. A slice of pizza (cheese topping, thin crust) is 192 calories. It's just not worth it. She doesn't eat doughnuts, pastries, chocolate or sweets anymore.

  
Water doesn't have any calories, so she can drink as many bottles a day as she likes. She allows herself a can of diet coke (1 calorie) with lunch when she is on her period; it helps her hold back her appetite– she is a strong-willed person, but her hormones tend to act up a little at that certain time of the month, so she needs to please them in order to keep them in check.

  
Whenever she is feeling lightheaded or dizzy during the day, she hides in the women's bathroom down the morgue and puts a teaspoon of Splenda under her tongue (2 calories). She feels better and ready to get back to work almost immediately.

  
She keeps track of every calorie she eats. She may lack people skills, she may be mousy and plain and uninteresting, but she's always been good with numbers. She loved math classes, always excelled at them. She constantly, compulsively adds, subtracts, multiplies and divides calories. If she eats this now, but doesn't eat this later, and has eaten this other thing for breakfast, but isn't planning on eating this other thing at dinner, at the end of the day she will have eaten this many calories.

 

Everything is always carefully measured (she's got all the right utensils) to make sure she never eats more than 115 calories a day.

 

She keeps track of what others eat, too.

 

Sherlock doesn’t eat when he is on cases because he says it slows him down.

 

She’s discovered she feels better when she is lightheaded because she’s run all day on an empty stomach. It makes her feel light as a feather. She’s learned that she feels better when she feels nothing.

 

(It makes her wonder if that's the reason why he doesn't eat often: because he avoids feelings, and they are easier to avoid when you don't have any energy to spare on feelings. Not if you are running on nothing but black coffee with two sugars most of the time.)

 

She tells herself she’s doing this because she wants to achieve perfection. (He wouldn't want anything that wasn't perfect, therefore she needs to be perfect for him to want her. It’s only logical.) She knows that once she does, absolutely every little thing will have been worth the effort she’s putting into this.

 

And perhaps then he will notice her. Perhaps then she will be good enough for him.

 

(He did notice those three pounds, though. She didn't eat for a whole week until she lost six pounds. She only drank water and put a spoonful of Splenda under her tongue every four hours.)

 

She has always wanted to be noticed, and she has always been underestimated and ignored.

 

‘Jim from IT’ noticed her, and that made her so happy! She thought no one read her blog. She thought no one ever saw her. And then along came Jim willing to prove her wrong! He told her he’d noticed her and that he always would. He asked her out for coffee. He made her feel seen. They went out on three dates and he kissed her on the cheek twice. He told her he respected her and that he wanted to take things slow because she was a special girl that deserved to be treated properly.

 

Oh how easy to manipulate, mousy and lonely Molly Hooper, desperate for attention. What an easy target. What a fool. What a loser. Stupid, good for nothing Molly. Breasts too small, mouth too small. She looks weird when she wears lipstick, and she also looks weird when she doesn't. She always looks weird. She always looks ugly. Her choice of wardrobe makes her even more so. Who would want to date her? Who would think of her? Who would notice her? Was she actually so stupid that she thought a man would give her the time of day if he wasn't intending to use her to his advantage? Was she stupid enough to believe someone would notice her for who she was and not because of the things she had access to?

 

(Those are the cruel words she hears in her mind. She hears them all the time. She doesn’t know how to turn those thoughts off. They’ve always been them. She’s always thought them, ever since she was a little girl that got bullied and teased at school because she was smart, because she read better than anyone in her class, because she wore glasses, because she was poor.

 

It hurts that the voice inside her head now sounds an awful lot like _his_. But she believes that maybe what hurts the most is that she enjoys listening to it _exactly because it sounds an awful lot like his_.)

 

She is nothing, so she wishes she felt nothing.

 

It would be easier that way, she thinks.

 

When she was a girl she’d wished all the time she disappeared.

 

Now that she is a grown up woman she wishes this, too.

 

(She bets no one would notice if she did. He wouldn’t notice, at least not right away. Not until he needed something from her. Only then would he notice she’s gone, she supposes.)

  
She keeps track of every calorie she eats. And at the end of the day, when she goes to bed, she is very pleased with herself knowing that she is totally capable of having _this_ under control, this little plan she has come up with: if she doesn’t have spare energy, then she will stop feeling.

 

And once she feels nothing, then she’ll be perfect for him.

 

And perhaps once that happens she will be noticed by him.

 

She can only hope.

  
(Although given hope is a feeling, she wishes she will be hoping for nothing pretty soon.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

_“What are you thinking? Pork or the pasta?”_

 

_“Oh, it’s you.”_

 

_“This place is never going to trouble Egon Ronay, is it? I’d stick with the pasta, don’t wanna be doing roast pork, not if you’re slicing up cadavers.”_

 

_“What are you having?”_

 

_“Don’t eat when I’m working. Digesting slows me down.”_

 

_“So you’re working here tonight.”_

 

_“I need to examine some bodies.”_

 

_“Some?”_

 

_“Eddie Van Coon and Brian Lukis.”_

 

_“They’re on my list.”_

 

_“Could you wheel them out again for me?”_

 

_“Well… The paperwork has already gone through.”_

 

_“You’ve… changed your hair.”_

 

_“What?”_

 

_“The-the style: it’s usually parted in the middle.”_

 

_“Yes, well…”_

 

_“Mmm, it’s good; um, suits you better this way.”_

 

She didn’t get around to eating her dinner that night. She did as he asked and wheeled both corpses out for him to examine, and once he was done and she had wheeled them in for a second time it was already too late and she was no longer hungry.

 

Or so she told herself.

 

He had complimented her hair. A couple of weeks ago he had commented on her lipstick, and then he had made another comment when she had cleaned it off her face with a wet wipe in the bathroom down the morgue, eyes burning with the tears she had refused to let fall. It had all gone wrong. She had tried to ask him out and he had misinterpreted her, thinking she had just been offering to fetch him some coffee while he was there. She had rehearsed the words in her head for months, practically since they had met that time he’d been visiting the morgue in the company of Mike Stamford and Detective Inspector Lestrade.

 

She had been lovesick over the great, intriguing Sherlock Holmes upon first meeting him.

 

But he never noticed her.

 

She didn’t count at all.

 

She was just plain, mousy Molly Hooper, the pathologist with a stuttering disorder that went hand in hand with her social phobia and that had put her through hell during elementary school, middle school and high school, making her the perfect target for bullies. She had been smarter than the rest, weaker than the rest, bad at sports, and had worn big glasses and baggy, hand me down clothes from the local church charity drive because her family had been poor and struggling.

 

 _Add a scar in the shape of lightning on my forehead and I could as well have been a female Harry Potter, sans the benevolent half-giant coming to take me to a witchcraft and wizarding school_ , she often thought to herself when reflecting on her childhood.

 

But she had gone to school. She had worked very hard to win a scholarship and put herself through college. She had become a pathologist. She had a position at Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, one many of her colleagues would have chopped off a limb for. She had her own place thanks to the inheritance of a second-aunt that had been childless and had favored her over her other nieces and nephews, and she wasn’t in debt, contrary to the case of several of her former classmates that were still paying for their student loans.

 

One could say things hadn’t worked out so badly for her after all.

 

But she was still shy. She was still plain, and mousy, with no sense of fashion whatsoever. She had trouble managing herself in social situations, and she still had a stammering problem that only got worse when he was around.

 

Molly Hooper was still lonely.

 

She had fought her speech difficulties to ask him out. She had practiced in front of her bathroom mirror more times that she cared to admit. And she still hadn’t gotten it right. He hadn’t understood what she had meant when she had asked him out for coffee. It had been her fault, of course- she had said the wrong words, or perhaps the words had been right but she had said them the wrong way.

 

She didn’t eat dinner that night because she was tired and the only thing she wished was to get home, take a quick shower to get rid of the smells that came with doing postmortems, and then work on that research paper for a medical journal she sometimes wrote articles for.

 

That night she thought it was easier to concentrate on an empty stomach. Perhaps Sherlock had a point after all. Perhaps eating did slow one down. Perhaps she wouldn’t eat her dinner the following night- that would give her more time to finish her research.

 

So she started skipping dinner and lunch now and then. It was the way he thought better, after all. He was at his best when he had an empty stomach, apparently. He worked better, faster. He got better results.

 

A man like him would never want anything short from perfection.

 

And so it began, plain, mousy Molly Hooper’s plan to be seen and noticed by the world’s only consultant detective.

 

Her plan to reach perfection.

 

Her plan to be noticed.

 

Her plan for Sherlock Holmes to notice her, the pathologist that dressed like a girl and loved kittens and watched _Glee_ on the weekends. The shy girl that had trouble saying the right words. The one whose mouth was too small when she didn’t wear lipstick. The one that once asked him out for coffee and ended up fetching his order from the canteen at the hospital while he attended to more important matters upstairs.

 

That was the night the idea started to take shape in her mind: the night he complimented her hair because he wanted to charm his way into the morgue to see the bodies. He said something nice about her not because he meant it- she wasn’t stupid enough to believe he meant it, of course he was just trying to get on her good side so she’d wheel the bodies out for him. But in doing that he gave her this idea that she could become more worthy, more deserving of the demigod she thought him to be if she started doing some of the things he did, the things he considered cleverer and more appropriate than those the normal people that he found so boring did.

 

She didn’t want him to find her normal.

 

She didn’t want him to find her ordinary and boring.

 

He would never want her if she was just ordinary and boring.

 

Molly Hooper never expected it to like it so much, skipping meals and eating every now and then instead of three times a day like she always had, even when as a kid she had been poor and her parents had had trouble making ends meet. She had never gone hungry. She had never wanted for food.

 

She quickly grasped the comprehension of why Sherlock Holmes thought eating was meaningless and a waste of time. An empty stomach made her feel lighter, more focused. It made her feel numb. It made her feel less. It made her feel in control, the one thing she had always wanted but had always lacked.

 

And soon it became something she did for herself, for her own good, as much as she did it to try to become appealing to him.

 

That night at the hospital’s canteen, the same canteen she had fetched his coffee from the day she had tried (and failed) to ask him out, he gave her the idea that would turn her life upside down.

 

For her obsession with every single mouthful she ate became as strong as an addictive as her longing for the affection and approval of Sherlock Holmes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

The need to establish a meal plan came after she passed out one afternoon in the bathroom of her apartment. She had two days off in a row because she had worked a double shift (tourist bus accident, twenty five dead people, six of them kids, two of them pregnant women). She hadn’t eaten that day, or the day before that, and she had worked almost 24 hours straight, elbows deep on bodies that had been perfectly healthy before a technical malfunction in the breaks had had them meet unexpected, sudden death.

 

Sheer exhaustion and a poor nutrition made her pass out cold on the bathroom floor when she was brushing her teeth before bed. When she finally regained consciousness, she couldn't have told if she had been lying there, toothbrush in one hand and water still running in the sink, for ten seconds or ten minutes. She felt dizzy, her head pounding worse than it had been in the past few days. She didn't remember how long she'd stayed there, black lights dancing before the eyes, which she kept narrowed because it was painful to have them open, but the moment she managed to stand she tumbled toward her bedroom and let herself fall flat on her face on top of her bed.

 

She had sustained herself during the past forty eight hours drinking only very weak tea, no sugar. She was surprised she hadn't passed out in the morgue. She was lucky it happened in her home, with no one there to witness it. No one to ask impertinent, unwanted questions about her eating habits or her health or how things were in her life, if she was pulling too many double shifts or if she wasn't getting enough sleep. No one to stick their noses where they didn't belong because they wanted some fresh gossip to start the week. No one to pretend that they cared when in reality they were just being curious.

 

She laughed bitterly when she realized this: she had no one that cared about her. She had no family, she was an only child and her parents were dead. She didn't have many friends either- the one she did have she suspected wouldn't notice what she was doing to herself if she played her cards well enough and smiled right through their sporadic half hour coffee date at their lunch times once every couple of months. They were all too busy, they didn't have much time. They didn't pay attention. They didn't want to hear the real answer to their _How have you been doing_ and _What's new in your life_ and _How are things at work_. They didn't want to know about how hard it is to be a woman competing in an all men work field, trying to show them that she was as good as them and that she was worthy of the job position she had at St. Bart's. They didn't want to know about her loneliness. They didn't want to know about a certain consultant detective and how he was the reason of her constant, now chronic heartache.

 

She had no one.

 

She was alone.

 

She wasn't cared for.

 

She didn't matter.

 

She didn't count.

 

The only person she really wanted, the only person she wanted to be cared for and noticed by didn't even see her. What difference would it make to him if she passed out because she was starving herself? What difference would it make to him if she got sent home in the middle of the day on medical leave? He still wouldn't notice. He still wouldn't care. He wouldn't even flinch. She wasn't perfect enough for him to spare a thought on her yet.

 

That day, while suffering a headache that barely let her breathe properly, with her eyes shut tight and stains of toothpaste drying around her mouth, she decided that it would be stupid to risk having what had happened that day happen another time during her shift at Bart's. She didn't like calling in sick, she had never done so ever since she'd started on the job. She didn't want to be seen as weak. Most of all, she didn't want to miss one of the days he stopped by the lab to use it for his experiments. How would she get him to notice her if he didn't see her? How would she get him to acknowledge the effort she was putting into achieving perfection if next time he was down at the hospital morgue he heard she was at home because she was feeling ill? He was the kind of man that kept on working no matter what- she had no trouble imagining him running around with a bullet in his chest (God forbade it!) solving cases like any other day. He would think even less of her if he visited the morgue and heard she'd missed work because she had been feeling under the weather.

 

She was a doctor. She knew about human anatomy. She knew what the body could and couldn't take, what it could do with and without. _Stupid Molly_ , she had been doing this all wrong. It was no good to her if she stopped eating altogether and began fainting day in and day out. She needed to be able to go into work every day and be excellent at what she did. She needed to be able to stay on her feet during her shifts, her mind sharp and brilliant as ever, her hands firm and steady.

 

As soon as she felt her legs would support her, she made her way to the kitchen and put the kettle on. While she drank a hot cup of tea with honey, she picked up a pen and a notebook and began writing down a meal plan for herself, her laptop open in front of her so she could research on the internet on everything she needed to know about the foods she'd ingest strictly from then on.

 

She'd eat every day, she decided. 115 calories a day. No more, no less.

 

 _A cup of nonfat milk is 91 calories,_ she wrote.

  
  
_An ounce of apple, raw, without skin, preferably grated, has 14 calories._

  
_  
100 ml of fresh orange juice are only 47 calories..._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

 

 

> **27 January**
> 
> Hi. My name is Molly Hooper. I work at Barts Hospital. I'm 31. Sorry. This is sounding like a list. I'm not sure why I'm doing this. It's just nice to have someone to talk to.
> 
>  
> 
> _1 comment_
> 
>    
> 
>        
> 
>             Hahaha!! That makes me sound so lonely!
> 
>             I meant it's nice to have somewhere I can share my feelings.  
> 
>             _Molly Hooper. 27th January 22:13_

 

She started the blog because she _was_ lonely and she didn’t have anyone to talk to. It seemed to be the new fashion, this blogging thing. _He_ had a blog. (She read it, of course. Always. She read each entry at least twice, perhaps even three, four times. She never left comments.)

 

She customized it with a pink, flowery theme and added a picture of a kitten in an attempt to disguise the sadness that she hosted inside. The theme of her blog was perky, childish even, more appropriate for a 12 year old writing about her first school crush than for a professional woman of thirty one. She was often told her wardrobe resembled that of a 12 year old. And the way he made her feel, the way she spoke about him- she was sure there were 12 year old girls out there that held themselves in those situations with much more dignity than she did.

 

It was supposed to be a way for her to express herself, the things she kept hidden deep inside where no one could see them and use them against her. Mock her about them. Writing the words, see them as they appeared on the computer screen like little black ants standing in line- there was something soothing, almost therapeutic about it. It felt like a purge. She remembered reading somewhere that there were animals that ate certain plants that would make them sick so they could purge themselves. She felt something similar about writing. But the process was inverted in this case: she was spitting out the things that she left unsaid, only that in the form of words. She felt better after they were written, the tight knot in her stomach a little bit loose. It was like emptying herself of the things that made her feel anxious and sad.

 

She started the blog because she felt that if she didn't pour her feelings somewhere, _anywhere,_ she'd be eaten by them. Sometimes she found herself wishing that it could be the other way around. Sometimes she felt she wanted to eat her soul, her heart, herself, consume those parts of her that ached and burned with her love for him, so they wouldn’t exist anymore. (Little did she know at the time that very soon she would be associating her well-being and emotional health with a _literally_ empty stomach. Little did she know that she would start consuming less and less food in an attempt to reach what she was sure he considered a state of perfection, or that she'd reach a point where she'd stop eating the little food she did eat and replace it by her very soul, her very flesh and bone, until she became thinner and thinner.)

 

 

 

 

> **28 January**
> 
> Do you believe in love at first sight? There's this man and I love him. At least, I think I do. I can't stop thinking about him. He's so intelligent it's like he's burning. And he's so cool but not really. And he's fit. Oh, he is really fit. And I can't stop thinking about him. I'm a sensible girl, I always have been. I've worked hard to get the job I have and I've got plans but he just rides all over everything. It's like I'm Molly Hooper, in control. 'Little Miss Perfect' as my mates call me. Until he walks into the room and then suddenly I'm this little mouse. He turns me into a mouse.
> 
>  
> 
> _1 comment_
> 
>    
> 
>        
> 
>             Squeak squeak!
> 
>         _Molly Hooper. 28th January 22:15_   

 

It had been love at first sight with him, she knew. She hadn’t believed in that before she met him. She always thought you needed to really know someone- their virtues, their flaws, their ups, their downs, as many things as you could- before you could truly, wholeheartedly say that you loved them. But then Sherlock Holmes happened to her, and every little thing she thought she knew and believed in just disappeared as if it’d never been there to begin with.

 

_There’s this man and I love him. At least I think I do._

 

She did. She did love him.  And it was consuming. Oh, so consuming! It ate at her- her heart, and her mind, and her bones, and her very existence. He was in her mind all of the time, and even all of the time didn’t seem enough for he was also in her dreams. He was in her every thought. He rode all over her. All over _everything_.

 

… _He walks into the room and then suddenly I'm this little mouse. He turns me into a mouse._

 

For someone that liked to have things under control, he gave her feelings that she had no control over. None whatsoever. He took it all away from her. Or perhaps she was just giving it to him willingly. She doubted she interested him enough for him to want to take control away from her for any other reasons that weren’t those related to his cases and the work he did at the lab. No, he did not need to take anything from her. Everything was given willingly, the things he wanted and the things he did not. He could have her, always have her, all of her, if only he wished so. (And oh, how she wished that he did!)

 

(Even when she wrote her blog entries she was not completely honest to herself. ‘Little Miss Perfect’ was the name her mates had called her, yes, ever since the second grade. But it had not been affectionate, and it had always hurt. But for some reason she didn’t want to write about that. She didn’t want to see the words on the computer screen, the retelling of the terrible years she’d spent at school, being bullied and ignored. As if the words, her very own words, could mock her too.)

 

 

 

 

> **29 January**
> 
> He was in again today and I still don't understand him. One minute he's noticing the tiniest thing about me and the next it's like I'm not here.    
> 
> He said I was wearing too much lipstick and then said I wasn't wearing enough. I just don't know. [Connie Prince](http://www.connieprince.co.uk/) will know. She's fab.
> 
>  
> 
> _1 comment_
> 
>    
> 
>        
> 
>             Is it wrong that I let him talk to me the way he does?
> 
>             I'm not like it with other men. Just him.        
> 
>             _Molly Hooper. 29th January 22:13_

 

A neverending source of mystery, she found that man was. She was not used to not understanding things. She’d always understood things at school. She’d always been top of her class. She hadn’t had many friends, she’d been a lonely girl that always hid behind books and spent her free time at the library or at the school lab, studying for her exams and  learning new things. She had won a scholarship. She had excelled at university. But Molly Hooper could not understand Sherlock Holmes.

 

She knew not to feel special when he pointed out something about her, for he was that way with everyone. It didn’t mean he was noticing _her_. She had seen him do the same with Mike Stamford and others in the morgue. It was in his nature. He couldn’t help himself, the words probably left his mouth before he had time to process them. It made him particular and peculiar. One of a kind. The only one of his kind, perhaps.

 

She had been nervous that day, when she worked up the courage to ask him if he’d like to have coffee when he was finished at the morgue. She had practiced it several times in front of her bathroom mirror. But it had turned out all wrong. He had given out his order- _black, two sugars_ -and she had gone fetch him it for him. She had taken a minute or two for herself in the bathroom down the morgue, though, to wipe off the lipstick she’d ‘freshened up’ a bit as she made a conscious effort not to let the tears that were burning in her eyes fall. Then when she’d given him his coffee he’d told her wiping off the lipstick was a mistake because her mouth was too small (the gesture he had done with his hand while saying that, the look on his face, his tone of voice- _contempt, disdain, dislike_ were some of the words her stupid brain had come up with during the following days as she analyzed their interaction over and over again.) She had cried that night after posting the blog entry.

 

She had felt like next to nothing, which she probably was to him anyway. _Nothing._

 

 

 

 

> **2 February**
> 
> I am dying. Well, I'm getting old. I bought something today.
> 
> A cat.
> 
> Yes. I am officially going to be a mad old cat woman. I'm 31 and I'm single and I've bought a cat.
> 
> But he's great. He's called Toby. And here he is!
> 
> Meena said that every single girl our age needs either a cat or a gay best friend. I figured a cat would be less fuss. Caroline was taking the mick but she still came round with a can of tuna to try and make friends with him. Then she started going on about that stupid hedge.
> 
> I was tempted to name him after you-know-who but Toby's cute and fluffy so you-know-who's name wouldn't really fit.
> 
>  
> 
> _1 comment_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>             'Miaow!!!' from Toby
> 
> _Molly Hooper. 02 February 23:02_

 

She got along well with Meena from work, and Meena got along with Caroline, so Molly made an effort to get along with Caroline as well although she did not like her very much. But she didn’t want to lose Meena. She didn’t want to be left out. They sometimes had their lunch together, and it was nice (at least it was nicer than eating alone at the canteen.) Meena and Caroline often did things together after work or during the weekends too, and lately Meena had been asking Molly to join them- she knew Caroline would rather Molly didn’t. But Molly liked Meena, and she could put up with Caroline.

 

It had been Meena’s idea that Molly got a cat. The pet was fluffy and affectionate, and cuddly, and very cute. She liked spending time with him when she got home from work. She felt pathetic admitting it, but the feline’s presence in the flat made her feel less alone. (She believed she would be even more pathetic if she admitted the pet made her feel loved- which it did.)

 

Things at work got very busy, and she had some research papers to write as well. She stopped writing in the blog after she got Toby because she spent the little free time she had playing with him, shaking shiny things and wool yarn in front of him so he’d try to catch it with his tiny, adorable paws. She’d have a light dinner, feed Toby, cuddle him and play with him, and then she’d work on her research, laptop atop her legs propped up against the coffee table, while the cat slept curled on the couch by her side.

 

And then one day something changed.

 

One day _it_ started.

 

And her life was turned upside down after that.

 

The idea for _her little experiment_ started to take shape in her mind _that night_ , and a man named Jim left a comment on her blog a couple of days later.

 

 

 

 

> **25 March**
> 
> Sorry, I've been really busy recently. Work is the same old. Caroline's left. Which we're all quite happy about because we were sick of hearing about that flipping hedge.
> 
> Toby's still brilliant. He sleeps on my bed now which is really nice. Toasty!
> 
> Oh, and Sherlock came in again tonight. And he was his usual arrogant self! And he was blatantly flirting with me and I know he's doing it and I should tell him to stop but I don't! And, of course, he was only doing it so I'd help him with something. As soon as he got what he wanted, he was off.
> 
> OMG! I nearly just wrote 'At least Toby will never leave me'. I am becoming a Mad Spinster!
> 
>  
> 
> _13 comments_
> 
> Oh!! How can I delete this?! I meant to say 'you-know-who' not his name!!
> 
>             Don't read this! Nobody read this!
> 
>             _Molly Hooper. 26 March 00:12_       
> 
>  
> 
>             Hi, sorry, are you the lady who works in the morgue? The one with the nose?
> 
>             _Jim. 26 March 00:14_      
> 
>      
> 
>             Who are you?
> 
>             _Molly Hooper. 26 March 00:15  
>  _
> 
>  
> 
>             Sorry! I work in the IT dept. Stupid night shift.
> 
>             _Jim. 26 March 00:17_      
> 
>  
> 
>             Are you all right? You've gone quiet...
> 
>             _Jim. 26 March 00:22_  
> 
>    
> 
>             Sorry. I'm just feeling a bit silly. I didn't know anyone read my blog. What's wrong with my nose?
> 
>             _Molly Hooper. 26 March 00:26_  
> 
>        
> 
>             Nothing. It's a cute nose. I hope you don't mind me saying. I'm here all night so I need more coffee.
> 
>             _Jim. 26 March 00:28_       
> 
>        
> 
>             Okay.
> 
>             _Molly Hooper. 26 March 00:30_       
> 
>   
> 
>             Do you like coffee?
> 
>             _Jim. 26 March 00:32_       
> 
>   
> 
>             Yes
> 
>             _Molly Hooper. 26 March 00:34_    
> 
>  
> 
>             Would you like to meet for coffee? In the canteen?
> 
>             _Jim. 26 March 00:35_   
> 
>   
> 
>             Erm... okay. 5 minutes?
> 
>             _Molly Hooper. 26 March 00:40_    
> 
>       
> 
>             See you there!
> 
>             _Jim. 26 March 00:41_

 

She had been working the night shift that day. She hadn’t been eating dinner every day since that night a week before when Sherlock had asked her to wheel two bodies out for him and she had said yes. He had complimented her hairstyle and she said yes to what he wanted. He had made a comment about his eating habits (or thereof lack of them) and he’d planted the idea that she could be more perfect for him, noticed by him, if she became a little bit more like him. He had been around that night as well, complimented the jumper she was wearing, got what he needed from her, and then left.

 

It was a quiet, slow night and she didn’t want to think about how hungry she was. She was eating less, skipping meals here and there, and although she did find that she concentrated more and worked better this way, she was still getting used to her new eating habits. She wrote a blog entry because she wanted to distract herself so she wouldn’t succumb to eating dinner. She had eaten dinner the night before, so that night she was supposed to skip it. She had already eaten lunch that day. She could eat dinner the following night.

 

She was freaking out about the fact that she had mentioned his name in the blog entry when something that hadn’t happened until that night happened: someone left a comment on her blog.

 

And that was how she met ‘Jim from IT’.

 

James Moriarty.

 

She said yes to coffee. She could drink coffee. Coffee was a very low calorie beverage by itself, she had researched that. Coffee wouldn’t mean any damage, right? And she felt lonely, and she was bored. And Jim sounded nice, and he had told her he liked her nose. When was the last time someone had said something nice about her, to her? She couldn’t remember.

 

It wouldn’t hurt to get coffee at the canteen with this person, so she said yes. She welcomed the distraction. The chance to chat to someone for a bit.

 

He was nice and well mannered. She didn’t find him attractive. He was not _him_. But he was fun, and he listened to her. He _actually_ listened to her. He let her speak. She was usually the one doing the listening with Caroline and Meena, and with the few friends she had. She preferred it that way. She still stammered a bit. It wasn’t as bad as it had once been, she had worked a lot to improve it and it showed, but the stuttering disorder still grazed the surface from time to time. Specially when she was nervous or anxious, which happened to her a lot in social situations. (It always happened to her when she was with _him._ ) Jim didn’t mind the stammering. He was patient. He was very kind.

 

When she laughed and said she thought no one read her blog or paid attention to her, he told her that he did notice her and that he always would. He didn’t mention the man she wrote about directly, the man she said she thought she loved, but he did tell her that she seemed like a sweet, special girl that deserved to be treated well and that anyone that ignored her didn’t deserve her.

 

She ate breakfast, lunch and dinner the following day, and the days after that too. She quickly put back on the pounds she’d lost since the little experiment of hers had started.

 

 

 

 

> **29 March**
> 
> Arrgh!! I'm having no luck with my friend's [hidden message thing](http://www.thescienceofdeduction.co.uk/hidden-messages)! Anyone?
> 
>  
> 
> _4 comments_
> 
>    
> 
>        
> 
>             I think the word 'grid' is a clue. There are 25 letters in the message...
> 
>             _Jim. 29 March 10:02_      
> 
>  
> 
>             That's it!!!
> 
>             _Molly Hooper. 29 March 10:06_
> 
>   
> 
>             Fancy another coffee? :)
> 
>             _Jim. 29 March 10:07_
> 
>  
> 
>             Yes
> 
>             _Molly Hooper. 29 March 10:09_    

 

She wrote that entry because she wanted to see if Jim was still keeping tabs on her blog. He was. He replied, and then he asked her out for coffee again. He asked her if they could call that their first date, and she blushed and said yes. She didn’t exactly _like_ him, but she liked his company. She liked him as a person. As a friend. He made her feel less alone. He made her feel noticed, seen. And that was everything she longed for: someone to notice her, someone to see her. He wasn’t Sherlock. No one would ever be Sherlock. But it was nice to have someone pay attention to her.

 

They talked about things that they found interesting. He said he loved music, mentioned his favorite band was Queen. She told him she liked music and Queen as well, and then she went on about how much she enjoyed an American TV show, _Glee_. He’d never watched Glee, so she asked him over to her place that night to watch a couple of episodes, even offered to lend him her DVD boxset. And he said yes, and then he promised her that they would take things slow because he didn’t want to rush into anything, that he would be a gentleman and that he would be going to her flat that night to share take away food and watch a TV programme, and nothing more.

 

He got a chocolate muffin with his coffee, and when he offered half to her she ate it. And that night when he went over to her place to watch _Glee_ , she ate dinner like she once had before the idea of being perfect for Sherlock had started to burn in her mind.

 

 

 

 

> **30 March**
> 
> I'm not writing anything because I know you're reading this!!
> 
>  
> 
> _16 comments_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>             Do you mean me?
> 
> _Jim. 30 March 13:42_
> 
>  
> 
>             Yes!!! You!! Thanks for lunch!
> 
> _Molly Hooper. 30 March 13:45_
> 
>  
> 
>             Thank YOU for last night!! Xxx
> 
> _Jim. 30 March 13:47_
> 
>  
> 
>             Did you like it then? Was it all right?
> 
> _Molly Hooper. 30 March 13:48_
> 
>  
> 
>             Yeah! I can't believe I've never seen Glee before! LOVED IT!
> 
> _Jim. 30 March 13:49_
> 
>  
> 
>             Me too! And Toby LOVED you!!!
> 
> _Molly Hooper. 30 March 13:50_
> 
>  
> 
>             He's lovely. And so are you. 
> 
> _Jim. 30 March 13:52_
> 
>  
> 
>             You're lovlier. Lovelyer. Lovelier? Is that how you spell it?
> 
> _Molly Hooper. 30 March 13:55  
>  _
> 
>  
> 
>             Don't you have spellcheck switched on?
> 
> _Jim. 30 March 13:56_
> 
>  
> 
>             How do I do that?
> 
> _Molly Hooper. 30 March 13:58_
> 
>  
> 
>             Didn't I show you yesterday?
> 
> _Jim. 30 March 13:59_
> 
>             I've forgotten. Again.      
> 
> _Molly Hooper. 30 March 14:00_
> 
>  
> 
>             Thanks for that. You're a good teacher      
> 
> _Molly Hooper. 30 March 14:46_
> 
>             Xxxxxx      
> 
> _Jim. 30 March 14:50_
> 
>  
> 
>             Xxxxxxxxxxxx      
> 
> _Molly Hooper. 30 March 14:47_
> 
>  
> 
>             XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX      
> 
> _Jim. 30 March 15:01  
>  _

 

She had a good time with him that night, and when he asked her out for lunch the following day ( _We can call it our third date,_ he had said) she felt happy. She did think he was a lovely person. He’d kissed her on the cheek that day after lunch, and she had felt guilty that she’d let herself imagine what it would be like to be kissed on the cheek by Sherlock. What it would be like to be taken out on dates by Sherlock. What it would be like to have him show interest in the things she enjoyed, the things she did, the things she thought, her music records collection and her love for American TV shows and her cat. She felt gulty because she knew that if he really was interested in her in _that way_ , then she was leading him on.

 

‘Jim from IT’ was supposed to take her out on their fourth date the day he stopped by the lab at the same time Sherlock and his flatmate, Doctor John Watson, were there using the equipment. She had mentioned Sherlock to Jim (and then after that she had wondered if he’d been able to tell that it was the world’s only consulting detective the man she had been writing about on those first blog entries.) She introduced them, made a big fuss about her ‘office romance’ (she had met him less than two weeks ago and he’d only kissed her on the cheek like twice, but she wanted Sherlock to know that there were other men out there and that they noticed her, that she was worth being noticed.)

 

Sherlock paid no attention to Jim at first, but then he looked at him for two seconds and muttered something that definitely did not sound like ‘hey’.

 

He told her Jim was gay after he left, went on and on about the little things that gave it away. She didn’t remember exactly what had been said or in what order. He had commented on the three pounds she had put on in less than two weeks, too. _Domestic bliss must suit you_ , he had told her, having no idea that things with Jim were recent. Why would he have had any idea? She had deliberately made it sound like it was something serious and probably long dated. It was not such thing, couldn't the great genius deduce that? Was she so insignificant for him that she wasn’t even worth deducing? Oh, but he had had no problem deducing that she had put on weight, or her ‘boyfriend’s’ sexual preferences. He had had no trouble telling her.

 

It wasn’t the meaning behind Sherlock’s deductions that hurt her. He wasn’t hinting at anything she didn’t suspect herself- she had thought that perhaps Jim was insecure about his sexuality, or maybe he was bisexual. She didn’t care if Jim was gay or not. She wasn’t all that interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with him. How could she, when her heart belonged to someone else? When she was so head over heels in love with another man? She liked Jim as a person. He was charming. He listened to her. She needed that. She wanted his friendship, the human contact, the coffee and lunch dates, the warmth of the presence of another human being in her life, and the laughter.

 

What hurt the most was how little Sherlock had cared about her. About her feelings. She hadn’t given him any indication that her relationship with Jim was anything but a romantic one. He hadn’t hesitated to hurt her. He had commented on her weight, her flaws, and then he had told her the man she was dating was gay and explained elaborately why he was sure of that. He hadn’t taken a second to consider that he would be crushing her feelings.

 

It had been proof that he didn’t care about her at all.

 

It made her feel like nothing. That was what she was to him. _Nothing._

 

 

 

 

> **1 April**
> 
> Jim, are you reading this? I'm sorry we argued and I don't mind if you're gay or not but where are you? Please, I miss you and I'm worried about you! Why aren't you answering your phone? And why aren't you at work? Your manager's going mental! Please!! Just get in touch!! Let me know you're okay!!

 

She had hated arguing with Jim. She had told him it was OK if he was gay, that he didn’t have to pretend with her. He didn’t have to be anything but himself. She had told him she wanted his friendship, that she liked him and that she wanted to be friends with him. She didn’t have many friends, and she enjoyed spending time with him.

 

He had left anyway.

 

She didn’t eat that day. She deserved to feel the hunger for the mess she had made of things.

 

She didn’t eat the following day, either.

 

She texted Jim repeatedly, but he never replied. He didn’t show up at work, either. He didn’t pick up the phone when she tried calling him.

 

She fell asleep crying that night (just like she had the night before). She knew she was feeding herself the excuse that it was only for her friend Jim that she was crying and not for the great Sherlock Holmes and the words he had told her, words that still made every bone in her body and every fiber of her heart ache. And she hated herself for that.

 

The following day all hell broke loose and she found out the truth about who ‘Jim from IT’ really was and why he had shown any interest in her.

 

That night she wrote a final entry in her blog.

 

 

 

 

> **2 April**
> 
> I won't be keeping this diary anymore. It was all a lie. Everything he said.
> 
> But, got to stay positive. Nobody wants an unhappy person working in a morgue.
> 
> Not that they want a particularly happy one either.
> 
>  
> 
> Stay happy everyone xx

 

And then she went to bed on an empty stomach and cried herself to sleep, not for the first time since she had met Sherlock Holmes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The entries from Molly's blog are from an online diary, a fictional blog supposedly written by the character in a certain BBC One drama that we all love and know so well. The blog is considered complementary to the series' first season, and it was my inspiration for this chapter. It can be found and read here: http://www.mollyhooper.co.uk/


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

When she lay awake at night palming the sides of her body trying to feel her ribs, she often wondered if it was supposed to get worse before it got better. She remembered something her father used to say: ‘the darkest hour is just before the dawn’. She wished it was true in this case. Her behaviour had become more obsessive and compulsive, and it was beginning to consume more and more of her time with the same voracity with which she was slowly consuming herself. But she wasn’t seeing any big improvements, only very little ones.

 

She felt lonelier and sadder after the end of her brief friendship with consulting criminal James Moriarty than she had been before. Molly had known him as the sweet, shy and chivalrous IT employee, Jim. He had left a comment on her blog one day when she was working the night shift at Bart’s. No one had commented on one of her blog entries before. He had complimented her nose, first. And then he had asked her for coffee at the hospital’s canteen.

 

They had gone out on three dates, and he had been the perfect gentleman in every single one of them. He had paid attention to what she said, what she thought, what she liked. He had made her feel less invisible. It had been nice to be noticed by someone.

 

Her interest in him had been mostly platonic- she had called it an ‘office romance’ in front of Sherlock to make him jealous. (She had had all the intention to lead Jim on. She had been mortified by the idea that she was somehow using him, and the son of a bitch had been using _her_ all along).

 

James Moriarty’s interest in her as a person had been mostly fake- means to an end. He had only wanted to get close to her because she was the only pathologist at St. Bart’s that Sherlock Holmes worked with. It wasn’t a matter of choice on the detective’s part, no. Molly was his only option at Bart’s.  She was the only professional there that somehow tolerated him and his eccentricities, not to mention his rudeness. So the mousy, plain Doctor Hooper would have to do for the great Sherlock Holmes.

 

Moriarty had approached her because he had read in her blog about what she felt for the world’s only consulting detective. She had written about how she believed it’d been love at first sight, and how he turned her into a mouse every time he walked into a room. And Moriarty had paid attention to every single pathetic word she had typed to later use them to his own advantage.

 

When they had gotten together for a cup of coffee at St. Bart’s canteen, he had vaguely commented about this mysterious, emotionally unavailable man she wrote about. He hadn’t given her any hints that he knew the slightest thing about this cold, distant man’s identity. He didn’t mention his name- which she had stupidly written by mistake in one of her blog entries, the night ‘Jim from IT’ had left the first of the several comments that had led them where they were. He had pretended to be baffled that anyone in their right mind wouldn’t return the attentions of a beautiful girl like her.

 

Moriarty had showered her with the sweetness and kindness that Sherlock lacked and that Molly so desperately needed. And she had believed him.  

 

She had been a vulnerable target. So very easy to use. So very willing to be used. Stupid, needy, friendless Molly, so sick and tired of being alone. She had walked straight into the wolf’s den with eyes fully closed and her scarred heart on her sleeve, her unrequited love for Sherlock Holmes written all over it in bold, bright letters.

 

She had exposed herself. Her weakness. Her Achilles heel. And so James Moriarty had made a fool out of her by posing exactly as what she needed most: someone who cared.

 

Perhaps she wasn’t good for anything other than this, Molly thought. Perhaps she was only good to be used. By Moriarty. By Sherlock.

 

What a complex thing human emotions were, and what wouldn’t she have given to rid herself of them, for she felt used and at the same time she felt completely useless- contradictory as that may sound. She was letting herself be defined by the views of two men that seemed so different but were in fact very much alike when one looked at them from up close. One of them had believed he had the right to lie to her and play her like a pawn in a game of chess. And the other believed he had the right to be cruel with her for the sake of showing off his impressive deduction skills and thus make her feel useless.

 

She had eaten better, more like her old self, when she had been exchanging friendly text messages and blog comments about her cat and _Glee_ with ‘Jim from IT’. She had forgotten a little about her morbid experiment when she had felt seen and heard by someone. And, naturally, that had shown in her body. She had put on some of the weight she had lost.

 

And Sherlock had noticed the three extra pounds Molly had gained. If he could tell when she gained weight, then he most likely could tell when she lost it. He hadn’t commented on the pounds she had lost before she met Moriarty, but he had brought attention to her weight gain that day at the lab when he had been visiting in the company of Dr. Watson. Had it been, perhaps, a way to punish her? But what for? Being weak and regaining weight? Entertaining the idea of dating someone else, someone that wasn’t him? (she wished). Or did he just choose to be right down cruel with her at any opportunity he could seize? Just because he could. Just because it gave him pleasure (she shivered at this, the thought that anything related to her could give him pleasure. She didn't want to dwell on how masochist that made her.)

 

During the course of the week that followed Moriarty’s exposure, she only drank water and hid in the bathroom down the morgue every four hours to put a spoonful of Splenda under her tongue. She lost six pounds in seven days. He didn't come by St. Bart's in that time, so he wasn't there to notice these changes. This small victory.

 

Once more she went unnoticed. The story of her life.

 

His absence from her workplace didn't discourage Molly. Quite the contrary. If anything, it made her even more eager to get successful results in this experiment of hers.

 

She bought a bathroom scale at Tesco and started to keep track of how many pounds she lost if she did this, if she did that. It was easy to decide on what adjustments to make to the meal plan this way. This worked, that didn't. She had to change this, she could keep doing that. It would be better if she modified this habit, it would be better if she didn't modify this other one.

 

Molly had seen Sherlock work on cases; he was always so detailed and meticulous about everything, observing intensely and finding things no one else did. Things no one else noticed. (Oh, how she wished she could one day become one of those things he noticed when no one else would!) Molly didn't have a Mind Palace, but she was very neat and organized in all aspects of her life nonetheless.

 

Molly’s routine changed after she bought the scale. She began to keep a journal similar to the one where she wrote what she ate, but in this one she kept record of how much she weighed.

 

It was the first thing Molly did every morning: she got out of bed, went to the loo, stripped naked and after she peed she used the scale. She penned down the information (date, time, weight) and went on about her day. She weighed herself once more fully clothed after breakfast (if her little food ingest could be called that), and after writing down the data in the journal she left for work. She repeated this three more times before she went to bed: when she returned home after her shift at St. Bart's, right before she ate dinner, and right before she went to bed. Sometimes she also got out of bed to weigh herself in the middle of the night when the aches in her head or stomach kept her from falling asleep until much later than two or three.

 

And so her days were spent in between counting how many calories were in this, and how many calories were in that, and how many pounds she weighed one day and then how many pounds she weighed the following one. She always was good at math, she always liked numbers, and at that moment they were one of the few things that were persistently on her mind: the calories she ate and the pounds she weighed.

 

And Sherlock Holmes.

 

Sherlock Holmes, the man that hadn’t been to see her since the last week of March, before she’d learned about Jim Moriarty’s true intentions. He hadn’t explained about Moriarty himself. He hadn’t called. He hadn’t stopped by St. Bart’s. He hadn’t texted her. (He never called her. He never sent her texts. Not unless he needed something from her. And what could he possibly need from her now that he knew just how stupid and useless she was? She had let him down.)

 

She knew he was emotionally unreachable. She knew it was impossible, her heart’s truest, deepest and most treasured desire. He’d never want her. She’d never be enough. If she hadn’t stood a chance before, then how could the odds be in her favour now after what had happened with Moriarty?

 

And yet she couldn’t get him out of her head. Out of her blood.

 

Her love for him spreaded like a rare disease with an unknown cure. He was in her blood, and she couldn’t get him out. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. Work, and calories, and pounds, and Sherlock Holmes were the only things she thought about. It bordered on obsession, all those things and the attention she paid to them.

 

But since she was lonely and no one noticed her, no one was there to tell her she had to stop doing that to herself. No one saw the subtle changes in the usually cheery, well-mannered and sweet young pathologist. No one took the time to look at her, _really_ look at her.

 

(Or perhaps they did look, but they didn't observe. They definitely didn't observe. Oh, no, they never observed. Or at least they didn't observe _her_.)

 

Word had gotten around about what had happened with her and Jim Moriarty, and all sort of rumours followed. None of them resembled the truth. All of them made Molly feel even more used, even more useless.

 

She became even more isolated than she had been before. She began avoiding Meena, the only colleague at St. Bart's she got on with, because she knew she'd have questions Molly wouldn't feel like answering. Her excuses became more and more frequent: it was _Oh, sorry, I can't do lunch today because I'm meeting up with a friend from college that's in London for the week_ one day _,_ and _Oops, I forgot we had made plans and I scheduled a dentist appointment I can't cancel_ the other. And eventually Meena understood that Molly wished to be left alone (Meena’s interest was purely in the details of her brief relationship with the now revealed criminal, after all), and so she stopped asking her if she wanted to spend time together after work hours.

 

Molly didn't care. She didn't want the pitiful looks, the awkward questions, the pretense of caring when all they really wanted was the scoop on the latest scandal at the hospital right out of the victim's mouth.

 

She only wanted attention and care from one single person, and he didn't seem to care at all. (And why would he?)

 

Every day of those four long weeks she’d wake up thinking that would be the day he’d stop by the morgue and see her. And he’d notice. He’d notice the weight she had lost. He’d notice the look in her eyes, the shiver that ran down her spine when he talked to her. That was what she said to herself every morning as she ate the little food her meal plan allowed her to have for breakfast: _this will all be worthy, for today will be the day that he’ll notice me._

 

But April came and went, and it didn’t matter how hard she tried or how often she told herself that _that_ would be the day she’d see him again, the day she’d be noticed by him.

 

It didn’t happen.

 

He didn’t drop by St. Bart’s.

 

He didn’t text her.

 

He didn’t call her.

 

(Why would he? Why could he possibly need from her now that he knew how vulnerable, and weak, and useless she was? Stupid, stupid Molly.)

 

The 1st of May came around, and he still hadn’t noticed her.

 

She lay awake in bed that night, palming the sides of her body to feel her ribs. She had lost eleven pounds in a month. She knew she could do better if she tried, but she also was a doctor and had a knowledge of the human body and how it worked, and most importantly, how to keep it working. She had decided early on her little experiment that trying to get noticed by Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t physically kill her (the emotional aspect of the situation… well, that was something else entirely.) She knew how far she could go, and she had already made a mistake when she had tried to lose weight faster by not eating at all. It hadn’t worked, she had ended passing out on her bathroom floor with her mouth stained with toothpaste and her toothbrush in one hand. There wouldn’t be any more mistakes, she had decided. She knew how hard she could push, and she knew where to draw the line. When the time came, she told herself, she would draw the line if needed be.

 

She wouldn’t die from this.

 

This was means to an end, she told herself. She would stop when he noticed her. She only wanted to be noticed by him. She’d achieve the perfection he sought for in everything, he’d notice her, and then she’d stop. She had it all planned. She had it all under control. All this effort would pay off, she knew it. It didn’t matter that right now things looked worse than they had been at the beginning. All of this effort would eventually pay off.

 

“The darkest hour is just before the dawn, Molly,” she whispered to herself in the quiet of her bedroom. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the sharp ache in her stomach. She had only eaten two large leaves of cabbage, three ounces of spinach and half a cup of chopped broccoli for dinner.

 

She tossed and turned in bed, willing herself to believe that the following day Sherlock Holmes would stop by St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, come by the morgue and see her. _Notice_ her.

  
Molly Hooper didn’t know it when she finally fell asleep that night, but the following day her wishful thinking would come true. And oh, how she’d wish that it hadn't, for her poor, broken heart would end up even more broken than it already was.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

She had slept very little the night before, and thus was not well rested on that cloudy May morning. The temperature had been around nine degrees, but the flat had felt even colder so she had worn two pairs of woolen socks to bed, a hat, and also on an old jumper over her long-sleeved Oxford t-shirt that she liked to sleep in. It hadn't been enough, though, and neither was the burning hot shower she took before she left for work. She still felt cold. She would have to talk to her landlady to see what could be done about the radiator. It couldn't be working properly, perhaps it had broken.

 

It was beginning to rain when Molly exited the tube station. She had her pink and black striped scarf on, and matching hat and gloves. She knew it clashed with her seaweed green trousers and her Dutch white cardigan sweater with little red cherries embroidered all over it. They didn’t go well with her old, overworn trench coat (dark grey and crepe tweed that had probably belonged to an elderly woman before- she couldn’t know, she had bought it at her local charity shop), but Molly had never been one to care much about fashion trends. The handbag she had that day- one by Radley, with a cheerful pattern of little scottish dogs-  was probably the only nice thing she had bought for herself (fashion wise) since she had started work at Bart’s a couple of years ago. It was nice and all of her things fit perfectly, including her laptop and whatever book she was reading at the moment. She liked to read during tube rides, whether she found a seat or had to make the journey from home to her workplace standing. She hadn’t been reading much lately, though. She was having frequent headaches, and reading on the tube only made them worse.

 

She was waiting for the light to turn green, the old Bart’s building now visible from across the street. Molly was so preoccupied with the latest paper she was writing for a medical journal, and that was due before the end of the week, that she didn’t notice that a young, tall and thin man wearing a beanie hat was following her. He had been on the same tube car with her only moments ago, and then had bumped into her on the exit stairs. He’d uttered an apology between gritted teeth that had sounded more like a growl. She was used to people bumping into each other on the tube, and even more, used to rude people being a woman in a men’s dominated field, and living in a big, crowded city guaranteed the frequency of these less than desirable encounters. Thus, Molly had not paid this much attention, quickly dismissing the incident from her mind.

 

It happened when the light turned green, and she was about to cross the street: the man that had been following her attacked her from behind. The moment she realized what was going on, she was lying on the ground on her stomach, her face smashed against the wet, hard concrete. And the man with the beanie hat was running away with Molly’s Radley handbag, disappearing into the busy crowd.

 

Someone- a man or a woman, younger or older than her, she’d never recall- helped Molly back on her feet. She was shaking, her vision blurred by the adrenaline and anxiety that were rising in the pit of her stomach. The person that helped her up (or was there more than one?) asked her something. She didn’t quite catch what it was: the words coming out from their mouth were nothing but noise adding up to the constant murmur of the tumult of people walking and driving to their workplaces and going on about their daily chores.

 

She turned away from the person(s) and crossed the street in the direction of Bart’s, still shaking like a leaf, her ears buzzing and her head spinning like a carousel. Molly went inside the hospital on autopilot, flashed the security guard at the entrance the plastic ID card with her picture and name on it (she never kept it in her handbag, she always made sure it was in her trousers’ front pocket before she left home for work- easier access). The man spoke to her- it sounded like a question, his tone somewhat worried, but she ignored him and walked past him and the desk, straight to the elevator.

 

She went to the empty changing room, sat on the bench in front of her locker and opened it. Her reflection looked back at her with vacant, wet eyes from the old, full length mirror that hung on the inside of the locker’s door. It was only then that she took on her appearance. She had arranged her brown reddish hair in a braid that morning, but now it was disheveled and sticking out of it. Her trousers were ripped at one of the knees, and the skin there was lacerated and bleeding. Her lip was also scraped and bleeding, and a dark bruise was already appearing on her left cheekbone. There was blood pooling in one of her nostrils, too. The mugger had pushed her to the ground, and held her there by the neck- if only for the few seconds it took him to steal her handbag- with such force that he had hurt her.

 

Molly sat there, alone and in silence, with her eyes fixed in the mirror until the image became blurry and distorted by the tears gathering there like clouds on a grey sky before a storm broke. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, she began to feel a stinging pain in her knee, forearm and the upper side of her left ribs. Was she hurt there, too? She’d have to go to the bathroom and undress, or at least take off the cardigan and the two long-sleeved t-shirts she was wearing underneath, if she wanted to give herself a quick check.

 

She didn’t want to cry, and she was trying her hardest not to. She was physically and emotionally sick of crying, and right now it would not do her any good. She had to pull herself together, she couldn't just sit there staring at the space blankly and swallowing sporadic sobs. She needed to change her clothes and then to tend to the flesh wounds, to begin with. Then she had to call the bank and the phone company, report the credit cards and the mobile as stolen.

 

She wouldn't cry over the American Express and Visa credit cards or the mobile phone- those could be easily replaced. She didn't care about the pound notes, either. But the leather brown wallet had been of sentimental value. So had been the Blockbuster card tucked inside of it that she never remembered to toss in the bin. Whether Molly acknowledged it or not, she held onto the now useless card out of bittersweet nostalgia: her father had loved to treat her to a Blockbuster movie and homemade popcorn on rainy weekends. And the wallet had been her father's. She hadn't had the heart to give it away with the rest of his clothes and stuff. Just like she had done with the Blockbuster card, she had too kept it out of nostalgia.

 

What else was there in the handbag?

 

Her laptop! Oh, her research papers were saved on that hard drive, and the last pictures and video recordings of her and her dad during their summer vacation in Sussex before he passed away! All of that was saved in the hard drive of her laptop, and now it was in the hands of some common London thief! Months worth of work and the last precious memories she'd made with her family before cancer had eaten it up and spit it out in front of her eyes, all of that violently ripped from her hands in a mere ten seconds!

 

It was gone. All of it was gone.

 

She felt physically ill from holding back the tears. Oh, what she wouldn't have given to stop feeling! To become numb and empty! Wasn't it what she had been trying to achieve as of late? Complete, blissful numbness and emptiness. Perfection. And wouldn't it be perfect to be so empty and so numb, light as a feather, that nothing could touch her, affect her, hurt her? How could she feel anything at all if she weighed nothing…?

 

When the door to the changing room opened, Molly was lost in these thoughts- funny, wasn’t it? How thinking of weighting nothing, feeling nothing, _being_ nothing, actually helped her feel better, lighter, almost as if it brought her closer to her goal. Her ears didn’t register the creaking noise the door always made when someone pushed it open, and her eyes didn’t notice the two male figures that appeared reflected behind hers in the mirror. One belonged to a man of relatively short stature, while the other, wearing a dark Belstaff coat, was that of a tall, fit man that held the self-assigned title of “world’s only” consulting detective.

 

Her senses too clouded by the brewing storm in her mind and her reactions slowed down by the deprivation of food she was subjecting herself to, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital youngest senior pathologist only became aware of the men’s presence when she felt the pressure of John Watson’s hand on her shoulder.

 

“Dr. Hooper?” the former soldier was calling her name with a worried note in his voice. “Dr. Hooper?” What happened to you? Are you all right?”

 

She jumped slightly when she snapped out of it.

 

“S-sorry, s-sorry. I-I s-spaced o-out…”

 

Her stammering always got worse when she was nervous and upset.

 

And it always got even worse when _he_ was around.

 

And _he_ was there. _He was there_ , the handsome, mysterious man with the piercing blue eyes and the dark, curly hair. The man she was deeply, irrevocably in love with. The man for whom she wanted to be perfect. The man that she ached to be noticed by. She was starved for his attention, and she was literally starving herself to get it. And now he was there.

 

For a brief moment, her food-deprived mind imagined a scenario in which he’d look at her with great concern, a sparkle of fury in his eyes because someone had hurt her mixed with something different that was rarely seen in them because it came from an emotion that he reserved for very few people. The people he cared about. And he would be mad, outraged that he wasn’t there to protect her. And he’d treat her with sweetness and kindness; he’d insist on looking at her bruises, cleaning and dressing them. He’d take care of her, and then maybe he’d even ask her if she wanted to take a cup of coffee with him, clear her mind of what had happened to her that morning...

 

“Molly,” Dr. Watson was now calling her by her first name and repeated the question: “Molly, are you all right?”

 

She turned around to look at Dr. Watson. The man’s features showed concern for the small woman he was standing in front of. He barely knew her, they had only met a couple of times when he had joined Sherlock in his visits to St. Bart’s laboratory and morgue. And yet, he seemed genuinely worried for her wellbeing. It was what any decent person would act like, wouldn’t they? Especially given the state she was in, with her disheveled hair and watery eyes, her cheekbone and lip bruised, her trousers ripped and her bloody knee…A random stranger had tried to help her on the street after she’d been pushed against the hard concrete and mugged, even if in her nervous, disoriented state she had ran away from them and into the safety of her workplace. Any decent person would ask what had happened. Any decent person would want to help, right?

 

Anyone, but Sherlock Holmes.

 

The consulting detective was leaning back against the doorframe, his mobile phone in his hands and his eyes fixed on the screen. He wasn’t paying any attention to the interaction going on between the pathologist and his flatmate, nor did he seem interested at all in anything that wasn’t the small technological device. It was normal for Sherlock Holmes to block out the rest of the world, become isolated and completely ignore other people and his surroundings. He may have been there in the same room as Dr. Watson and Molly _physically,_  but it didn’t guarantee his mind was there. She had once heard him talk about something he called his ‘Mind Palace’, describe how he would sometimes retire there to analyze, catalogue and delete data. Molly had found it fascinating at the time. Maybe he was there right now, hidden inside his brilliant, burning mind. e was yet to remark on Molly’s state and the general situation. Maybe when he was in his Mind Palace he went into something like ‘screensaver mode’ until exposed to a powerful enough stimulus that jolted him back into motion.

 

It had to be that, right? It couldn’t be that he was listening in to her conversation with Dr. Watson (if him frantically asking what was wrong and her stammering out words could be called a conversation), but didn’t care at all. He couldn’t be aware that something was wrong, that she wasn’t well, and still chose to ignore it, ignore _her,_ would he? People often said he was a self-diagnosed sociopath, but Molly had always considered they were speaking figuratively. He had disappeared after the incident with Moriarty, he had not been that present before that as well. He had ignored or overlooked Molly plenty of times, but he couldn’t just ignore her now, or could he? He couldn’t just ignore her in the state she was in.

 

“Molly?” Dr. Watson was still trying to reach to her, to get her to talk more coherently. She seemed to have gone into some sort of catatonic state, sitting very rigidly with her eyes vacant and her hands flat, palm down on her tights. Oh, but her mind wasn’t quiet at all, for her train of thought was going ten miles a second.

 

“Yes-s, yes-s,” she said. “Yes-s.” She took a deep breath. “S-sorry. I-I-I s-spaced out a-again,” she apologized once more. She was shaking all over again. Her shoulders, her legs, her hands…

 

“Molly, what happened to you?” Dr. Watson asked once again, real concern now written all over his face. “Your face is bruised, and… Are your hands bleeding?” He gently took one of her hands in his and turned the palm up so he could examine it. She simply let him, she let him take both her hands and put them palms up, let him handle her like she was a doll.

 

It was true, her hands were bleeding. She hadn’t noticed that before, but they were. She must have scraped her hands against the pavement when she had been pushed by the mugger, but she hadn’t noticed the cuts and the blood. One of them looked deep, she may even need stitches… And her trousers had dark stains where she had been resting her palms until a second ago.

 

“I-I hadn’t n-noticed,” Molly said, her tone almost apologetically. “S-sorry,” she added. And then, again: “S-sorry, I-I hadn’t n-noticed.”

 

 _What do you have to be sorry for? What should you have to apologize for? You’ve just been mugged! It wasn’t your fault!_ But those thoughts never made it to her brain’s hemispheres, for they got lost somewhere along the way. Just like any coherent, reasonable thought had ever since she had started favouring her experiment over her health and wellbeing a couple of weeks ago. And so the voices inside her head that were worth listening to were beginning to speak lower and lower, until one day soon they irremediably became a barely audible whisper.

 

“Molly, what happened to you?” Dr. Watson asked once again, without letting go of her hands. He was examining them carefully. They had to look like nothing compared to what that man must have seen in Afghanistan (or was it Iraq? Molly didn’t remember). She always looked like nothing compared to the things people had seen elsewhere. She was always unimportant… Dr. Watson didn't even know her, he was just asking what happened to her out of politeness and respect.

 

The voice of a third party that had remained silent up until that moment reverberated in the small changing room:

 

“She was mugged on her way to work from the tube station, probably a couple of blocks away from it, presumably when she was waiting to cross the street to enter the hospital building. A burglar followed her from the station and when he deemed his chances at making a run for it were at their best he attacked her by pushing her flat on her face to the ground so he could steal her handbag. Incidents like this have been reported recently, but the police are idiots and they haven’t caught the burglar yet. He thinks he’s so good at it so he keeps acting in the same zone, riding the tube over and over again every day, targeting vulnerable women and mugging them. By the way, Molly, your shift started ten minutes ago and you’re still here. You should be at the lab.”

 

He said all of that matter-of-factly, not stopping for breath or taking his eyes off the mobile screen once.

 

Dr. Watson had a look on his face that had become more and more common since he had made acquaintance with the other tenant at 221B Baker Street. He was half amazed at his power of deduction and half mortified by his lack of tact and people skill. Sherlock Holmes was not only well-known because of his ability to solve cases no one else could solve: his reputation as incapable of feeling empathy towards others (or to feel human emotions at all) preceded him. Watson had been witness to his capabilities for insensitivity, and more than once in the last couple of months he had feared someone would punch Sherlock in the face for being an insensible prick (it was known to have happened.) But never had  it occurred to the doctor that _that_ would be his reaction to a woman being hurt in a mugging. Especially if the woman was someone he knew! Well, Sherlock Holmes was full of surprises, wasn't he? This was just another item in the Pandora’s Box.

 

The shorter of the two men made a sound through hisnoise, clearly showing annoyance at his friend. He then ignored Sherlock the same way he was ignoring Molly before giving the pathologist his full attention again.

 

“Were you mugged, Molly?”

 

“Y-yes. On m-my way t-to work.”

 

Damn it. Damn the stammering and damn her stupidity and damn Dr. Watson for being so nice while his flatmate was being a complete arsehole. Damn her again for not taking her big doe eyes off of the consulting detective even when he was openly choosing to ignore her, favouring whatever it was he was typing in his phone over her current state. Damn her mind for conjuring up that scenario with him caring about her moments ago. Why would he care for her? Why would he give a damn how she was or what happened to her? Who did she think she was to expect that? He was the great Sherlock Holmes, so bloody brilliant his mind was always burning with that flame of intelligence that ignited his blue eyes. And she was plain, simple, mousy Molly Hooper. She was worth nothing to him. She wasn't good enough for him to peel his eyes off his smartphone. He hadn't shown up after the whole Moriarty affair to check on her or even mock her about her taste in men, what made her think he'd care if she'd been mugged and hurt?

 

“Did they do something to you? Did they…?”

 

She cut off Dr. Watson’s worried questions:

 

“It happened j-just… j-just like Sherlock s-said.” Her gaze fell to the ground, to her sneakers that were drenched because of the rain.

 

“I already explained what happened to her three minutes ago, John. Do keep up,” Sherlock said, an air of impatience in his voice and body language. “Now, for the last time: I need to use the lab and Molly's shift started almost a quarter of an hour ago now. The lab is where she should be, and where I want to be to use the equipment. Shall we go?”

 

The pathologist made to stand up, but Dr. Watson put a hand to her shoulder and had her sit down again. He ignored Sherlock completely.

 

“Molly, what did they steal from you? Have you called the police?”

 

She tried her best to ignore Sherlock just like he was ignoring her (impossible, to say the truth, but she tried) and focused on answering Dr. Watson’s questions:

 

“They t-took m-my handbag.” _Don't stammer. Don't stammer, you useless, stupid thing. You are a grown woman with a medical degree, you're bloody past stammering._ “They took my handbag, it had my laptop in it, and my wallet with a few pounds notes, and my credit cards, and some other personal effects…”

 

“All of them of emotional value.” Sherlock made his uncalled for input. “And no, she hasn't called the police, John. She came straight here and sat down there, holding back tears because of the items that were of sentimental importance to her that she won’t likely get back. The laptop had all of the research papers Molly writes for medical journals. She doesn't even know how to turn on autocorrect on her phone so she wouldn't know how to set up a back-up, unless she'd asked her former sweetheart ‘Jim from IT’ to teach her in the brief time they ‘dated’, if hanging out with a homosexual consulting criminal could be called ‘dating’. I saw her wallet once when she was down at the canteen at the same time as me and she paid for her order. It was old, a man’s, and it used to belong to someone she loves, someone who passed away- it was her father's. Oh, the laptop also probably had pictures, videos and other recorded memories of other deceased loved ones. She’s worked Mother’s Day ever since I’ve known her, so her mother is also dead. There were pictures of her mother and father in her laptop, and videos, too. I don’t presume she’s had them burned on a CD, so she doesn’t have any other copies.” He took a deep breath for the first time since he’d begun talking. “Now that we’ve established all this, I will ask Molly for the last time: could you go to your workplace and assist me with what I need? I am starting to become absolutely bored with this case I’ve been working on my phone. I don’t like being bored. I had other things in mind when I decided to come to Bart’s this morning.”

 

Each sentence felt like a stab to Molly’s chest. The pain wasn’t just a pang, it wasn’t just a tug at her weakened heart. He had just given her an emotional beating. He had done to her what she’d seen him do to other people: deduce them until they were completely exposed, naked and vulnerable and their souls bleeding and hanging by a thread. Or at least that was how she felt. That was how her chemically unbalanced, food-deprived brain made her feel. Exposed, and naked, and vulnerable, and worthless. He was a God among mortals and she was another puzzle to solve, an easy one- he hadn’t even needed to look up from his phone to do it. He was a neverending source of mystery and brilliance, and she was something that according to his standards probably belonged in the bin once deduced, where else?

 

“I can’t believe you, mate,” Dr. Watson said, a furious exhalation escaping his nostrils. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “I really cannot believe you.”

 

Molly simply sat there, wishing the earth would open up at her feet and swallow her whole, erasing all trace of her existence. Her eyes were burning with the tears she was refusing to let fall. She wouldn’t show more weakness than she already had, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing exactly how _right_ he had been about everything he’d said.

 

“What is it that you cannot believe?” he asked John “That I get bored easily? Or that I expect people to be on duty at the time their shift begins?”

 

 _Don't listen to him, don't listen to him,_  she chanted to herself. Oh, he was destroying her. He could have shot her and left her to bleed dry and it would have been less painful, easier. It wouldn't have been as humiliating.

 

“I am not going to dignify that with an answer.” Dr. Watson said, and then she turned to Molly again. “Molly,” he said more calmly and in a kind tone. “You should phone the police, tell them what happened. And then, you should phone the bank to report your credit cards stolen. And the mobile company…”

 

She nodded her head yes automatically, but he wasn't really listening to what he was saying. Her ears were buzzing and she felt dizzy. Had she had breakfast that morning? She couldn't remember. She certainly felt like she was going to be sick any moment now. Was it today an odd day or an even day? It was the second of May, she remembered. What did she have for breakfast on even days? She was trying to focus on that, facts and data about the experiment she was conducting on her body in order to achieve perfection, so she wouldn't have to face so directly the fact that the man she wanted to be perfect for cared so little about her. Littler than she'd had imagined.

 

 _Would he ever notice if I disappeared?_ She wondered. _If one day I just disappeared, would he notice?_

 

Dr. Watson was still talking, what about she had no idea. Something about having her wounds looked at and dressed properly, and that he could do it himself if she wanted or call whomever she wanted to. She didn't want them to call anyone. She had been mugged and was hurt, and Sherlock Holmes had inflicted upon her even worse pain that that physical sting and burn she was feeling in the lacerations in her palms and knees. She just wanted to be left alone, curled up in a ball on the floor and to _die._

 

“I d-don’t w-want a-a-anyone to l-look at m-my bruises,” Molly cut Dr. Watson off in a small voice.

 

“See?” Sherlock told Dr. Watson, his eyes still fixed on the mobile screen. “She's fine! Let's go to the lab, those experiments aren't going to make themselves simply because I want to. Really, John, you shouldn't believe in that _The_ _Secret_ nonsense you were watching the other day on the telly…”

 

Dr. Watson paid no attention to him.

 

“Molly, I can look at them for you. It'll be just five minutes. Sherlock,” he said to the consulting detective, all patience lost now “please wait outside until Molly and I are done.”

 

The former army doctor had a look in his eyes that wasn't as polite as the words he had said to his flatmate. The expression on his face was clearly saying _get lost, you prick._

 

The tallest of the two men opened his mouth to protest, and at this sight something kicked Molly from the inside. Perhaps it was the little self-preservation instinct that she had left, or perhaps she was too tired and she wanted no more.

 

“Don't w-worry, Dr. Watson,” she began before Sherlock could say anything. “I c-can d-do it myself. I may w-work with dead b-bodies, b-but I'm a physician, too.” _Great, stammering and joking._

 

“Please, do not make any more jokes, Molly. It doesn't suit you,” said Sherlock.

 

“You c-can g-go to the lab now, I will b-be there with you shortly.”

 

Sherlock breathed a sigh of relief and left without even glancing at her once. Both doctors could hear him murmur something about time wasters.

 

 _Please don't cry in front of a virtual stranger_ , she pleases with herself when she was left alone with Dr. Watson. _Don't break down until you're on your own in the bathroom. Don't break down. Don't break down._

 

“Molly are you sure you're…?”

 

She interrupted him before he finished his sentence.

 

“Yes. Yes, Dr. Watson.” She found the stammering easier to control with Sherlock out of the room. “I will take care of myself, phone the police, the bank. I can do it on my own, really.”

 

_I do everything on my own. I am alone. I have no one. I am used to being on my own._

 

Dr. Watson looked at her, the concern on his expression was unmistakable.

 

“Is there anyone I could call or something I could help you with…?”

 

“No, no. Thanks. Really. Thanks.”

 

She just wanted him to leave. She didn't want his pity. She didn't want him trying to fix what Sherlock had broken inside her with his remarks and deductions. She didn't want him to be seen as the fragile woman that was constantly broken by Sherlock Holmes.

 

_But aren't you just that, mousy Molly Hooper?_

 

“I'll go to the lab with him, then.”

 

“Yes, yes. You do that. I'll be there shortly. Thank you.”

 

_Leave, leave. I can't hold it in anymore, please just leave._

 

He looked like he wanted to say something, but ultimately he chose not to. She couldn't have been more thankful for that. Dr. Watson closed the door behind him, not before he casted one last worried look her way.

 

And then, she was finally alone.

 

She barely made it to the small toilet in the changing room before she got sick. She remembered then that yes, she had had breakfast that morning (if what she'd eaten could be called breakfast, anyway). She flushed the half digested contents of her stomach and wiped her mouth with a paper towel after rising.

 

Molly noticed that she felt better after throwing up. The action of emptying herself caused her a sense of relief she had never experienced before in her life. She felt lighter than when she didn't eat. So much lighter. So much better. She almost wished there was anything left in her stomach so she could do it again, for it had felt so relieving, so gratifying, it had almost made her forget the physical pain, and the emotional vivisection she had been put through.

 

_One day you'll be enough, Molly. You'll be perfect. And he'll notice you._

 

She closed the door behind herself when she exited the small toilet. She made a mental list of everything she had to do.

 

Clean and dress the wounds, change into the spare clothes she kept in the locker.

 

Call the police to report the mugging, call the bank to cancel the credit cards. The thief had probably used them already, she had taken too much time sitting there looking weak and stupid, and being cruelly deduced by the man she loved.

 

Then she had to go explain to Mike Stanford what had happened. Or should she do that first? She'd do that before she called the police and the bank.

 

And then she'd have to deal with Sherlock Holmes at the lab.

 

And go through the day without breaking down.

 

The end of her shift couldn't come fast enough, it occurred to her. All she wanted to go was go home, cry for everything, cry in peace.

 

And perhaps eat something so she could throw up again, get that wonderful, overwhelming sense of relief and emptiness wash over her once more.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

A month and a half passed in between the day she was mugged and the next time he spoke more than two words to her while looking her in the eye. Sometimes she thought he treated her like that because she was undeserving of his full attention, while during other moments she could have sworn he was making a conscious effort to avoid her. The more he ignored her and the crueler he was to her, the harder she punished herself for not meeting his high standards for perfection. The less he noticed, the more she starved. In the nights she was prey to insomnia she wondered if she had no idea what she'd stop at or if, on the contrary, she knew it full well: she'd stop when he noticed her. She'd put an end to it all when he saw she was right there. (And wasn't it ironic that in order for that to happen she had to push herself near the borders of physical disappearance?)

 

In mid-June, he spent a whole week going in and out of Bart’s at all hours, John Watson always by his side taking notes on the progress he made. The consulting detective was bored, and irritable, and determined to appease himself by attempting to solve a thirty-year old, gone-cold, quadruple-homicide case. He needed to make use of the laboratory’s facilities to conduct experiments and test theories and Molly was, as always, eager to help and cater to his every ridiculous, pretentious need. And he was, as always, distant and aloof, only talking to her when he wanted something specific and disregarding her efforts to engage him in conversation.

 

Dr. Watson, however, treated Molly with the respect and consideration that Sherlock’s interactions with her lacked. Unlike his flatmate, he didn’t comment on how bad the coffee she offered them tasted. He accused Sherlock of being too picky, and even told him off when he said that there were dogs that drank from the sewers that wouldn’t want Molly’s coffee, either. The young pathologist just stood there unable to utter a single word to defend herself against his mockery. She stood there by the lab equipment, motionless and pale as a ghost, shaking like a dry leaf abandoned to the mercy of the windy, winter weather in spite of the temperature getting warmer as they approached the beginning of summer. But she felt cold all the time as of late. Her body didn’t register the 23° everyone else’s did, so her outfits (always mismatched, ugly and unfitting, according to Sherlock) consisted mainly of trousers, woolen cardigans, sweaters, and thick woolen socks.

 

She knew why her body was having trouble regulating its temperature. It was one of many physical symptoms of the experiment she was conducting on herself. There was nothing wrong about experiments, right? Sherlocked loved experiments, he was always elbows deep in them, and they weren’t necessarily all case related. Now she was carrying out one herself, one that didn’t have much to do with her profession, but with her personal life. All the things Molly was doing had a purpose: she had the hypothesis that if she were like Sherlock and paid little attention to insignificant, distracting things like food, she’d reach the levels of perfection the man in question possessed. The experiment she’d been carrying out was to prove and support this. They were people of science, both Sherlock and herself. This was science, after all, wasn’t it? Or at least she told herself that every time she noticed new symptoms. It was cause-and-effect, and the experiment provided her with insight on it. She didn’t eat the amount of calories she used to, and her system was manifesting this with disturbances in the regulation of her body temperature. It was common, it was expected. It was part of the experiment.

 

There were other symptoms as well, of course. She felt tired. Drained. Fatigued. Sleep eluded her at night. But she wouldn’t let it go any further than that, no. She was a doctor, a professional woman with a medical degree she had worked very hard for (almost as hard as she was working on this, for _him_ ). She’d know where to stop. She’d know when to stop. He’d notice before things progressed further.

 

He deduced everyone, knew everything about everyone he crossed paths with, even if it was someone he had just met. And yet, he hadn’t said anything about her and the weight she’d lost. He hadn’t made any comments on the bags under her eyes that she felt too tired in the morning to try and hide with cosmetic products (she’d never been one to own many of those, either). He hadn’t offered his opinion on the fact her choice in clothing could be more appropriate for early November than mid-June. She wondered why that was. He paid little attention to her compared to the rest of the people that went in and out of St. Bart’s morgue and laboratory. And, Molly couldn’t make up her mind about whether he was doing it deliberately because he didn’t want to acknowledge she was succeeding in her road to perfection, or if he simply cared that little about her and she wasn’t worth deducing anymore.

 

Dr. Watson, on the contrary, seemed very interested in her and her well-being, and she suspected that he was trying to overcompensate for Sherlock's lack of interest in her. She thought Dr. Watson was a very nice man, and she wondered if his presence in Sherlock’s life would change the consulting detective’s nature, if Dr. Watson’s ways would have any significant impact on Sherlock’s.

 

That morning in mid-June wasn’t making a case for Molly’s belief that John (he insisted she dropped the formalities and called him by his first name) would have a positive impact on the aloof, yet mysterious man in the black Belstaff coat. His behaviour was, if anything, worse than when he’d first begun frequenting St. Bart’s. The more she tried, the colder he grew, the more he withdrew, apparently. Perhaps it meant she was having more success than she was giving herself credit for: if he was pushing her away and becoming more reserved himself, then it meant what she was doing was having an effect, right? And he was trying not to show her. Maybe he was testing her, experimenting a bit himself. Was her resolve strong enough? Did she have it in herself to continue with her own experiment if he did his best to discourage her from it? Was that it?

 

Her thoughts and feelings on it changed constantly, and she experimented a variety of sensations sometimes several times in the space of an hour, especially on days like this when she saw him and they interacted. Molly knew what was to come in the next couple of days: she'd analyze everything that had been said between them, and everything that hadn't. Every look, word, touch (yes, sometimes his hand and hers accidentally brushed), all of that she'd go through in her mind over and over again until she exhausted herself. The most tiring, torturing aspect about it was how fast and violently her feelings and perspective went from hot to cold and vice versa, and how it affected her mood. Sometimes it was a matter of minutes. She guessed it had to do with the hormones, another side effect of her own experiment.

 

“Don't mind him, Molly. The coffee's not bad. And how could he know, anyway? He doesn't know how to brew coffee himself,” John said, luring her out of her thoughts. Another side effect, she thought: since she wasn't ingesting as many calories as she used to, her body needed to slow things down a little. Basic chemistry and biology, really. She was thankful for her medical knowledge, otherwise doing what she was doing would have been much more difficult. But not to her, no. She was a doctor, she had everything under control.

 

“I do know how to brew coffee,” Sherlock interjected without taking his eyes off the sample tissue he had under the lense of the microscope. “And even if I didn't know, I still have normal functioning taste buds. Now Molly, please,” her heart leapt when she heard him say his name, even if she could anticipate that what was to come would probably be as insulting as what preceded. “Do us all  a favour and go fetch some real coffee from a place that actually sells the beverage and not this poor excuse for mud diluted in water. Black, two sugars.”

 

Sherlock had never complained about her coffee prior to that day; this was the first time he'd had harsh comments to make about it, and she hadn't done any different and it was the same brand. The cup of coffee was the same as the thousand cups of coffee she'd brewed for him before. But now for some reason he hated it and didn't want it anymore. It was ridiculous, and rationally she knew it. Other people (less emotionally invested people) wouldn't have cared; they would have dismissed it as Sherlock behaving like the prick they all knew he was. But she couldn't do that. Her feelings for him, her need to be deemed perfect in his eyes, already bordered on obsession. Molly couldn't help but read too much into it, analyze it as it were the most complex problem she could be presented with. There wasn't anything different with the coffee itself, so there had to be something different with Sherlock, or with Molly herself.

 

“She doesn't have to go fetch you coffee from someplace else, Sherlock,” said John. Then he turned to the pathologist. “Molly, you don't have to.” He turned to Sherlock again. “Really, mate, if this coffee isn't up to your high standard you can go fetch another cup yourself.”

 

John's words stirred something within Molly that didn't feel right at all and made her sick to the stomach, even if all its contents that morning were nothing but orange juice and regular oats cooked with water, because it was an odd day and on odd days she drank orange juice and ate two tablespoons of oats for breakfast. The implication the older doctor was making didn't sit right with her: if Sherlock didn't like coffee the way Molly made it because it didn't meet his high expectations, then he could always go somewhere else to get coffee that was better suited to his tastes. It was only logical, wasn't it? If he didn't like what Molly had to offer him, his best option was to go somewhere else, somewhere with someone that could offer him what he wanted and needed. What he thought he deserved. And Sherlock Holmes was the kind of man that thought he didn't deserve less than perfect, and he wouldn't settle for anything other than that.

 

The only respect she got from Sherlock was, and always had been, as a pathologist and a professional. She didn't think he'd ever respected her as a person. What if that stopped as well and he left? What if he decided he'd rather work in someone else's lab? Or at another hospital? What if he already wished he could do that but he only used the equipment at Bart's because it was the only place that would have him? And she was the only pathologist that would have him, tolerate him, work with him.

 

(And perhaps she was the only woman that would love him.)

 

Those words from John, innocent as they had been and only said with the intention to put Sherlock in his place, made Molly think of something that she found beyond terrifying: the idea of Sherlock replacing her in his life, walking out on the professional relationship they had, choosing not to have any contact with her whatsoever anymore, in favour of working with someone he thought better. More qualified. Someone perfect in ways she'd never be, no matter how hard she tried.

 

She was going to be sick.

 

“Go to the bathroom if you're going to be sick, Molly,” Sherlock said, deducing from the corner of his eyes, that were still fixed in the sample he was examining, that the young doctor was thinking of going to the loo as discreetly as possible to empty the contents of her stomach, little as they may have been. “Admit that even you can't stand the taste and smell of the horrible coffee you make.”

 

Molly stayed rooted to the spot. She didn't move. She didn't vomit, either, which at that point was nothing short of a miracle given the strong waves of nausea that were washing up and down her throat, acidic and burning. She had been doing that quite often ever since the day she'd been mugged: when something upset her greatly, when she felt sad or frustrated or scared she'd never be perfect for Sherlock, she would throw up. It relieved her. It soothed her. She always felt better after throwing up. It was as if everything she had inside her, all those thoughts and feelings and fears weighing her down, disappeared the moment she expelled them from her body. She felt lighter, too. It was some sort of purge, a behaviour that allowed her to clean herself from the inside out. What she felt afterwards also bordered a little on pleasure. Vomiting had become pleasurable for her. It made her feel better when nothing else seemed to do the trick. And God, did she need to feel lighter and clean right now! And yet his deduction (albeit wrong: it wasn't the smell or taste of the coffee what made her want to be sick) had her root to the spot. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. He did that to her. He turned her into something that resembled a corpse more than a living, thinking person.

 

“I'm not going to be sick,” she lied when she finally found her voice. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction to be (partially) right about this. He wouldn't allow her feed him lies, and yet instead of going ahead and doing what she damn well pleased, what would make her feel better, she was choosing once again to put herself and well-being in second place because of Sherlock Holmes. Because she didn't want him to think she was weak (or weaker than he already thought she was).

 

“You are,” he contradicted her. “I am occupied right now, so I'd rather not have to single out every little detail that lets me know you want to be sick. Go to the bathroom and vomit to your heart's content, Molly, but stop standing there with your mouth half open like a dead fish. You are distracting me and I need to work. Now go.”

 

She didn't wait to hear whatever words were coming out of John Watson’s mouth. Less than five minutes later she was kneeling in front of the toilet in the bathroom down the hall, the water running in the sink to deaf the sounds of her dry heaving.

 

As she brushed her teeth before going back to the lab (lately she always kept a small toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste in the pocket of her white lab coat- it came in handy quite often when you threw up three or four times a week during working hours), Molly thought that perhaps Sherlock did notice what was different with her. (Not wrong. Different. There wasn't anything wrong. She was different, things were different. It wasn't wrong if she was incontrol, which she was, so everything was alright. Different, yes. But all right). Maybe he knew she was eating less calories and less frequently. Maybe he knew she was losing weight. Maybe he knew why she threw up. Maybe he did know all of that, but didn't care about any of it, or her.

 

She closed her eyes and pushed the thought out of her head. She couldn't leave those thoughts distract her from her experiment, her goal. If it was true that he noticed but didn't care, then she'd have to take the experiment further and make him care.

 

And with that idea roaming around her mind, light-headed and with her breath smelling fresh, Dr. Molly Hooper closed the bathroom door and went back to the laboratory.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

Molly Hooper had never been a good liar because in all of her thirty-one years of life she had never had a reason to tell anyone serious lies. The occasional white lies had, of course, escaped her lips from time to time, all with very good intentions behind them. Most of them she had told to her parents so as not to worry them about her lack of social life and her poor relations with her classmates.  _ I’d rather have cake with Nan or buy a new book than have friends over for my birthday  _ sounded better than  _ There isn’t anyone at school for me to invite because I don’t have friends. _

 

A girl with glasses, second-hand clothes and a stuttering disorder from a family facing financial hardship was not meant for popularity. And she had been overly smart, too, gifted for science, and math, and biology, with a strong passion for reading and learning. Children had been cruel to her because of all of that. When she reached adolescence, she discovered they got crueler as time passed. It wasn’t known as ‘bullying’ at the time, and not much had been done about it, but as an adult she now understood that that was what she had suffered as consequence for her shyness and awkwardness.

 

She couldn’t remember a time when her parents hadn’t had a lot on their plate, and she hadn’t wanted to worry them with her problems when they were already struggling to make ends meet. They had worked very hard to provide Molly with the best education they could afford, and she thought that complaining about her classmates would have been very ungrateful of her. So Molly learned how to gloss over the truth, but she had never told straight out lies. 

 

But then she met this gorgeous man that went by the self-made, self-assigned title of world’s only consultant detective. And he sometimes asked her to assist him on one of his cases or experiments. And he often demanded things from her: body parts, post mortem reports, access to fresh-out-of-the-bag corpses. And sometimes she had to lie in order to satisfy his thirst. To her boss. To Detective Inspector Lestrade. To her colleagues. To herself.

 

Molly Hooper had begun to tell lies-  _ serious _ lies, prone-to-have- _ consequences- _ lies- when she made acquaintances with Sherlock Holmes. Catering to his every need became  _ her _ only need so gradually she barely registered the changes in her behaviour at first. The lying itself felt as natural as breathing when it came to pleasing Sherlock. He wanted something from her, and she willingly gave it. If she had to stay past her working hours, she did. If she had to go to the laboratory on her days off, she did. If she had to lie, she did. 

 

If she had to starve herself to fit his standards of perfection, she would. She did. And this experiment of sorts didn't come alone. It came with sacrifices (those she was used to, they were nothing she wasn't used to), and it came with more lying than she would have guessed when she first embarked on this. But she didn't mind, and she knew it would all be worthy. Besides, it became easier as time passed. The more she lied, the better she got at it. And the more lies she told, the more natural it felt to keep coming with new ones to sustain the others. 

 

Her colleagues at St. Bart's, noisy as boring old ladies playing bridge over Sunday afternoon five o'clock tea, had taken an interest in what she ate and what she didn't. When they happened to be in the break room down the hall that led to the morgue at the same time as her, they would comment on the small portions of food she brought from home in small plastic containers bought at Tesco. Didn't she feel hungry afterwards? And wasn't it too little good to go by for the rest of the shift? And didn't she tire of always eating the same thing? She tired of people like them, she thought, asking questions out of boredom. She told them she was more of a big breakfast person, and that eating during her shift slowed her down and interfered with her work.

 

There were comments on her choice of clothing, as well. July and August came and went, and no one saw her wearing anything other than long-sleeved sweaters and jumpers. She didn’t understand those: the morgue and the laboratory were supposed to always keep low temperatures. What did they care what she wore to work? Why did they talk to her at all? 

 

She knew they were not trying to be nice or make small talk, they were not trying to include her. They had never cared enough about her to make room for her in their little groups, and after the gossip about her dating Moriarty she had become even more isolated. Even Meena, whom she had been friendly with and often hung out outside of work, had lost interested in her. (Or perhaps Molly had begun distancing herself from everyone.) They were prying, sticking their noses where they didn't belong. She didn't want any of that. It wasn't their attention she longed for.

 

And they believed her, of course, because the truth was that they didn't care about her enough to notice what was really wrong. They didn’t care about mousy, shy, lonely Dr. Hooper unless she could change shifts with them or work Christmas, and Easter, and whatever festivities they wished to be off for to celebrate with the family she didn’t have. 

 

She didn't care about lying to their faces while she slowly munched on one of the two pieces of boiled broccoli she ate for lunch, securely wrapped in whatever oversized cardigan she had chosen that day. She knew something they didn’t. She knew the recipe for perfection, every needed ingredient and all the right measures, and she didn’t want to share it with anyone. She had gotten tired of always being nice and playing fair and sharing everything, she supposed. Where had that gotten her? Nowhere interesting so far.

 

The more she lied, the easier it became. 

 

The more she lied, the more she enjoyed it. 

 

The man she wanted didn’t want nice. He wanted perfect. Nice didn’t equal perfect. Nice was far from perfect in his book. And, judging by what she knew about him, so was honesty.

 

The nice, quiet girl Molly Hooper had once been was becoming someone different. Darker. Lighter.

 

_ More perfect.  _

 

He visited the laboratory and the morgue often that summer, at least once a week. He was as cruel to everyone around him as ever, if not crueler. The worst he treated her, the more he ignored her, the more she clung to the idea that he was fighting an attraction that became stronger the further she took her little experiment. It did nothing but encourage her, and she wondered if he was doing it on purpose: testing her, seeing how far she was determined to go to prove him she was worth it.

 

She was willing to go as far as her body allowed her. And she knew her body, knew how it worked and how to control it. It wasn’t going to turn against her or betray her. Molly was in complete control of the choices she made and the processes she put her organisms through. She had the upper hand and was in absolute control because she knew how far she could go, and she also knew he’d give in before she reached the crossing line.

 

They had a system, a working dynamic. He was in, he had to be. She knew he had noticed the experiment she was conducting, and he was responding accordingly. She hadn’t been satisfied at first, but the less she ate, the lighter she became, the clearer she saw it all. An empty stomach meant a sharper, more focused mind. He had taught her that, he had let the secret slip on when he’d told her he avoided food during cases because it slowed him down. Well, he was a full time case for her, so if she wanted to be at the top of her game she couldn’t allow anything to slow her down. And he knew, he had caught on. His silence on the subject, how much effort he put in making her feel ignored, the bitterness and crudeness of his comments and remarks in her presence were enough evidence of that. 

 

Molly knew all of this rationally. At the beginning his reaction had hurt and confused her. But several sleepless nights tossing and turning and with her doe-like eyes fixed on the immaculate white ceiling of her bedroom had helped her see what he was about. 

 

What it all was about. 

 

It was about power. 

 

It was about control. 

 

He hadn’t thought her good enough at the beginning. He hadn’t thought much of her when he’d met her. And yet here she was, the nice girl at the lab that wouldn’t have counted for Sherlock Holmes learning his tricks and conducting an experiment to metamorphose herself into someone worthy of his attention. 

 

He lied an awful lot, she knew, and so did she now. He was bitter and short to everyone, and she had begun to act like that around some of her colleagues, no longer interested in making their acquaintance and bonding with her over fish and chips after hours or warm mugs of coffee from the canteen on slow days. She didn’t let something as mundane as food distract her from her work. She wasn’t much of a social butterfly, but the little social life she had once had disappeared completely when she realised the only two things holding those interactions together were gossip and breaking bread with those sat around the table exchanging the former. Molly didn’t have time for those things, and had finally understood why he avoided them as well.

She functioned better on an empty stomach, at all levels. And damn him if he didn’t know that. He knew. He could see it. He was testing her. He was proving her.

 

She’d show him she could be as good as him, if not better.

 

The more time passed, the more she convinced herself she had the upper hand. 

 

Lying to others was not the only thing Molly had become good at after she discovered how well it work to her advantage. She had also found a mechanism to maintain control around Sherlock and remain stoic beyond what she would have expected from herself a year ago. This contributed to baffling him because she wasn’t reacting the way he wanted her to, the way he had grown accustomed to.  

 

The idea had come to her mind the day he had insulted her coffee for no apparent reason. She had vomited, just like she had done that one time after the mugging. She had been doing that often. It made her felt better. Relieved. Throwing up brought her a sense of relief, pleasure and satisfaction that she had rarely experienced in her life. It was a sort of high, she supposed. She had never smoked or taken drugs, but she had a medical degree, she had rationalized to herself, so she knew plenty about them and the effects they had on the human body. 

 

Sherlock had his vices, his highs, and she had hers. Throwing up made her feel better. It was like reaching down, deep inside herself, grabbing the awful weight in the pit of her stomach and taking it out. It made her feel empty, light. 

 

When she threw up, the few minutes that followed the dizziness and once she wiped the tears from her eyes, she felt perfect.

 

It was simple. It was easy. It worked.

 

(It also was a vicious cycle, she knew. One she felt comfortable trapped in it for the moment, but a vicious cycle nonetheless.)

 

It could also be described as an antidote, perhaps. One that should be taken immediately after the poison entered the bloodstream. He was mean to her, she threw up, she felt better. He said something hurtful to her face (when he dared look at her face), she threw up, she felt better. He ignored her with all of which the action implied, she threw up, she felt better. 

 

Molly couldn’t have Sherlock knowing about her coping mechanism, the source from where she drew out strength, because she was sure he’d find a way to quickly neutralise it and having some of the control back for himself. Running to the bathroom down the hall to empty her stomach with him right there to witness the symptoms and call her out on it wouldn’t do. 

 

That same night, while she lay in bed cold and unable to fall asleep, Molly came to the conclusion that she’d have to fight the nausea, the urge to feel that almost orgasmic, blissful calm and peace that came with vomiting. The toothbrush and the toothpaste tube she had started carrying around in her lab coat pocket had been great ideas, she had that under control. Well, now she’d have to control  _ when  _ it happened. She’d have to suppress it, and wait until she was alone and in peace to vomit to her heart’s content, like he so tastefully had put it in words. 

 

Some small adjustments had to be made. She usually went hours without ingesting anything other than water or light Coke, and the spoonfuls of Splenda she put under her tongue weren’t really something she could vomit once it dissolved and she digested it. She couldn’t lose the calories she ingested because they were the exact amount her body needed to keep on functioning. That had been a flaw the first few weeks she’d spend vomiting whenever she pleased: she’d feel lightheaded afterwards, she’d even had terrible headaches. She had to have something on her stomach if she wanted to experience the full bliss throwing up had become for her. And it had to be something she’d feel pleasure expelling from her body.

 

So Molly began to keep a box of Mars Bars in her office. Molly had loved those as a kid, and the fact that her parents usually let her have one on her birthday or Halloween was one of the reasons why she had loved Roald Dahl’s  _ Charlie and the Chocolate Factory  _ so much. The little boy in the book shared a background with her, and he was too allowed a chocolate bar on special occasions because his family couldn't afford more than that. 

 

The box was safely stashed away in her desk drawer, the bottom one. It was rarely opened. Every time Sherlock upset her, she waited patiently until he left, and then she stuffed the pockets in her white lab coat with two, three, four bars, as many as they could hold without looking too bumpy or too weird. She would go to the bathroom, lock the door, sit on the closed toilet lid and eat two, three, four chocolate bars. She didn’t enjoy the taste or texture anymore, she just ate them, devoured one after the other. Then, she would let the water run in case someone passed by (highly improbable, but precautions were never a waste of time). And with the noise of the running water in the sink as some sort of cheap background music, she would push two fingers down her throat until she threw up.

 

It was perfect. It was simple. It was much more neat, and it made her feel so in control. Her emotions didn’t tell her when to experience something she enjoyed. They didn’t dictate her behaviour. She didn’t leave things unfinished because something deep inside her began aching all of a sudden and she needed to find release. She wasn’t an addict. She chased the high, but it was all on her own terms. She decided when and how now. 

 

Everything was under control.  _ Hers _ . 

 

She also missed writing. It was another way of purging herself. It was liberating, to take it all out and put it right there on the blank space, filling the whiteness of the sheet (virtual or otherwise) with all of that ache and loneliness that she housed inside. Writing and reading had always made her feel less alone. She’d spent a lot of time writing as a kid - journals, diaries, short stories, whatever she could. It had done her good. Pen, paper and words were friends that listened with attention and affection, and they didn’t judge. They didn’t use the information you relied on them to their advantage, either. They wouldn’t use her own weaknesses against her. Writing was safe. 

 

She had abandoned that pink monstrosity of a blog she’d once kept, the one Moriarty had contacted her through to use her as he pleased. She didn’t want to look at it ever again, and she wished she knew exactly how to delete it, erase it from the face of the earth. It reminded her of how stupid she’d been, how easy to manipulate. Besides, Meena and Caroline had known about that blog, and she wondered if from time to time they checked to see if she’d updated it. She remembered they had mentioned doing that a couple of times with the blog of a former colleague they’d both been friends with briefly and then tossed to the curve after the woman had said or done something that rubbed them the wrong way. 

 

By the end of September, she began writing again. As with any experiment, documenting the collected data, the tests and the results was important. She logged into one of those free blogging sites, and protected by the anonymity the world wide web provided (lesson learned: she’d never sign anything online with her name again) she began writing about what she was doing to herself. She didn’t include any personal data- she wasn’t hoping for anyone to read it, either. It was for herself. She was writing for herself, to herself, about herself. She chose a minimalist theme, nothing like the girly thing adorned with cats she’d had before. This was simpler, more sober: black serif typography on white background. She titled it ‘Anatomy of an empty stomach’. It was clever. It was fitting. She’d write an entry every day to document what she’d eaten and to comment on whether she’d thrown up or not. She’d write her weight and the measures she took daily as well. She spent a whole day off copying what she had in printed journals so it would be documented on the blog, proper dates and all. 

 

By late October, the blog had over 130 entries, she had lost ten more pounds, and she hadn’t seen Sherlock in almost a month. He kept on asking things from her, of course. But she noticed how all interactions were started by him and held via text message, no personal contact required whatsoever. 

 

He was trying to show her he was in control. He was refusing to see her in the flesh (or in the bones, that saying would be more accurately) because he didn't want to admit defeat. He didn't want to face the truth: she was becoming like him, perfect in a way others weren't because they tainted their minds and bodies with mundane things such as food. He thought that by maintaining his distance but still making demands for her to satisfy he'd be restoring the balance she was so determined to alter. 

 

Well, maybe it would have worked before, but it wasn't working now. She knew why he was avoiding setting foot in St. Bart's. She knew why he was asking for body parts and reports and whatnot via text messages. She knew why he had those people from his homeless network as he called it going from the hospital to Baker Street carrying containers with fresh livers, eyeballs and whatever other organs he fancied testing his theories on.

 

He wanted back the control she had taken. He wanted to be in charge of the situation, like he used to before she started to experiment on herself. Before the changes began. Before the results were seen, palpable and real. 

 

Molly Hooper wasn't going to relinquish control. It had taken time, she had suffered through it, but her sacrifices were proving their worth. She had the upper hand. She had made Sherlock Holmes scared of what she could be, of the potential she had, of the perfection she could achieve if she tried to (and oh, God, was she trying!) He was scared enough to stay away from her, and from Bart's, but it wouldn't last long. She knew that. The time would come for her to finally have him where she wanted him, and was that encouraging.

 

She was in control. And everything would be all right as long as it remained that way. 

 

But of course something would happen to alter the natural balance she had fought so hard to establish. It was always that way: nothing could stay unaltered and sacred long enough for her to enjoy it. Pleasure and satisfaction were, after all, as fragile and easy to break as the illusions she was feeding herself to sustain and survive in her food deprived state. 

 

It was the weekend before Halloween. She worked a double shift on Saturday and had the Sunday off. She had finished a paper for a medical journal that morning, and then treated herself to a cup of coffee and a slice of carrot pound cake for lunch at Starbucks. It was the weekend, she could vary a little as the amount of calories was the same at the end of the day. She remembered she was running out of light Coke cans and Mars Bars boxes, so Molly went to the Tesco nearby to stock up. 

 

The trips to the store had always been boring and routinary before she payed attention to what she ate and, most importantly, what others ate. She enjoyed deducing what illnesses the shoppers around her were most likely to suffer according to the groceries they purchased. 

 

_ Looks can be deceiving _ , Molly thought to herself as she looked down to the contents in her own trolley: two dozen light Coke cans, six dozens of chocolate bars, three boxes of Splenda. Anyone would think she'd die of a sugar induced coma, and yet she was sure no one in that store had eating habits as healthy as hers. The months before she’d had to make small purchases: three or four cans of Coke one day, a box of Mars Bars another day. She didn't like answering stupid questions. She didn't like being the subject to their inquiring looks. Halloween was near, and the stores were trying to capitalize on it despite the fact most Brits still saw it mainly as an American thing. There were a lot of extra sweets for sale. The cashier would probably think she was having a party or something- she'd make the most of it and buy all those chocolate boxes now. 

 

She was heading for the checkout line when she heard a familiar voice call her name:  

 

“Molly!”

 

It was John Watson. 

 

“Molly Hooper!” 

 

He wasn't alone. There was a petite, very beautiful blonde woman by his side. Her hair was short and in a fashion that reminded Molly of the early 1920s, and there was something about her smile that made her think of the Cheshire cat in Lewis Carroll's  _ Alice in Wonderland. _ She held herself with an elegance that made her stand out and appear ten times more gorgeous than the other women around her, even if she was dressed in casual Sunday clothes and pulling a shopping trolley full of groceries. 

 

“Hello, John,” Molly said. She hadn't seen him in awhile. This casual encounter made her nervous for some reason. Lately she didn't like small talk, or talking to people in general. She enjoyed silence more. Silence was good. That was one of the reasons why she liked doing post mortems so much: the silence.

 

She hoped this would be one of those brief social exchanges before they each went their separate ways. They didn’t know each other that well, and although she liked the former soldier she wasn’t in the mood for more than,  _ How do you do, _ and,  _ Oh the weather’s been awful lately. Well, I won’t keep you any longer, I see you’re busy, take care! _

 

“How have you been?” He didn’t give her any time to answer a question she knew it was being asked out of politeness. Why would John care how she’d been? “Allow me to introduce you. Mary, this is Doctor Molly Hooper. Molly, this is Mary Morstan, uhm…”

 

One didn’t have to be the world’s only consultant detective to deduce the relationship they had was romantic, and new. The blonde woman was quick to notice John’s sudden awkwardness and discomfort and finished the introduction herself:

 

“Hello, Molly, pleasure to meet you” She offered a hand that Molly took. Her handshake was firm. The smile on her lips reached her bright, big eyes. “I’m Mary Morstan, like John here so eloquently told you.” She flashed the man by her side a teasing grin. “He is a good friend of mine that sleeps over at my house and joins me for boring grocery shopping on Sundays. Bolder people would call it ‘dating’, I think.” 

 

John and Mary laughed, the former visibly less nervous than he’d been a moment before. Molly laughed, too. It felt strange, the sound foreign to her ears. She didn’t remember the last time she’d laughed. 

 

“Do you work with John?” Mary asked her with genuine interesting. Molly hoped the woman didn’t expect to have a long conversation, for she was tired and eager to get back to her day off. 

 

“I work at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. I am a pathologist…”

 

Mary Morstan interrupted her before she could finish.

 

“Oh, so you’ve met through Sherlock, I’d imagine.” She said with a smile, and John nodded his head yes. “I haven’t met him yet. For some reason John thinks I might not like him.” The woman laughed again, and at this both John and Molly made a noise like a chuckle. 

 

“Well, perhaps if I can convince him to host a gathering for Christmas…” John said.

 

“That would be delightful! Wouldn’t it?” Molly nodded her head automatically, not really paying attention to what Mary was saying. The older woman seemed wonderful, but Molly wanted to bid the couple goodbye and go home. She felt very tired and dizzy all of a sudden, she needed to lay down. She’d been working a lot on that paper for the medical journal, she had woken up so early after a sleepless night. 

 

“We’ll see,” John replied to whatever it was Mary was saying about how fast Christmas was approaching.

 

The young doctor’s attention was redirected to the conversation when she heard Mary say her name.

 

“Molly, I’ll make sure John doesn’t forget to invite you!”

 

Molly opened her mouth to reply, what exactly she didn’t know. But Mary kept on talking. 

 

“I see you are throwing a party yourself,” she commented, gesturing to the contents of her shopping cart. “Halloween?”

 

“Oh, yes. Yes,” Molly didn’t mind what the woman or John thought about her throwing a Halloween party at the age of thirty one years and in a country that didn’t indulge much in a typical American celebration. “A couple of my friends are from America, it was their idea. We do it every year. I am hosting it this year.” 

 

She didn’t know why she said that. She didn’t have friends from the United States. She didn’t have many friends at all. She was a lonely woman to whom lying had become a sort of second nature to protect the secret experiment that was so precious to her. 

 

The more she lied, the easier it became. The more she lied, the better protected her experiment would be. She didn’t need prying eyes looking at what their owners wouldn’t understand. She didn’t want anyone sticking up their noses where they did not belong. What did she care if they thought those purchases were for a party? The sooner they went their way and she could go home, the better. The headache was getting really bad and she needed to rest.

 

“Oh, that is wonderful! How fun!” 

 

“Well, Molly, we don’t want to keep you,” John said, finally. “It’s been great to see you.”

 

“You too, John,” Molly said. “It’s been nice to meet you, Mary.”

 

She couldn’t wait to get home and take something for her headache. She hoped the checkout line wasn’t too long, and that the cashier wasn’t too chatty. Did she have some paracetamol still? She couldn’t remember. She’d have to stop at Boots and get some more tablets just in case.

 

“Likewise, Molly. I hope to see you again soon.”

 

The couple and the doctor finished saying their goodbyes, and they each went separate ways. The interaction hadn’t lasted more than five minutes, but Molly felt so tired she may as well have been standing there talking to them for five hours. 

 

Once Molly was out of sight, Mary hooked her arm with John’s. They walked arm in arm, John pushing the trolley. After a minute or two of silence, she asked him:

 

“How long have you known her?”

 

“Molly?” Mary nodded her head in the affirmative. “Met her the same day I met Sherlock.”

 

“She seems like a nice young woman.”

 

“She is.”

 

“Do you know if she is being treated?” she inquired with genuine worry. 

 

John looked at the woman beside him with a puzzled expression on his face.

 

“Treated for what?” 

 

“You haven’t noticed then?” Mary seemed as perplexed as John was, and he could not understand why. What medical condition that required treatment should he have noticed about Molly Hooper?

 

“What should I have noticed?”

 

“Oh, John, sometimes I think you look, but you don’t truly observe,” Mary sighed. 

 

Sometimes Mary sounded too much like Sherlock. He wondered if he didn’t want them meeting yet because he was afraid of Sherlock saying something offensive to or about Mary, or if it was actually the other way around. 

 

John repeated his question:

 

“What should I have noticed?” 

  
“Anorexia, John. That young woman is clearly anorexic.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank my friends Rowi and CD for helping me while I was writing this chapter. Rowi is what I would call a 'consulting specialist' when it comes to the wonderful Mary Morstan and everything her character entails. CD is the best editor a writer could hope for (and since I am an editor myself I know what I am talking about. I wish I were half the editor she is.) Both of them are wonderful and I would be nothing without their encouragement to keep on writing.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you @Row for discussing Mary's character with me.  
> And thank you @MissingMissFisher for being the best editor a writer could ask for.

The most noticeable thing in Mary Morstan’s flat were the bookshelf-covered walls, Dr. John Watson thought every time he was a guest in her home. She was an avid reader. There must have been at least a couple of thousands books in those shelves. Sherlock could probably guess the exact number with just a cursory glance. He had once deduced how many newspapers and magazines there were in a newspaper stand by just looking at it for five seconds. He was amazing at it, like some sort of machine programmed by the government and hidden inside a regular-size thirty-four-year-old human male suit. It fit more in the plot of a George Orwell novel, but after getting to know Mycroft more it didn’t seem so far-fetched of a theory to John. At least it would explain Sherlock’s extraordinary ability to deduce and comment on things that no one seemed to care about, but could (probably) deduce and ignore things that actually mattered and counted.

 

Mary was an intelligent woman, with observational skills and a wit that matched those of the world’s only consulting detective. If what she suspected was true, then Sherlock had to be able to see it as well. John couldn’t believe --wouldn’t believe-- that Sherlock hadn’t noticed something was wrong with Molly. He would bet an arm and a leg that he had. The question was: was he doing something about it?

 

Maybe he had. Maybe for once in his life he was keeping his mouth shut about someone’s personal life and offering them help instead of pointing out the problem for everyone else to see. John wished to believe that it was the case, and that his friend was keeping him out of it because Molly’s health was none of his business. Because it was something delicate and private concerning only the young pathologist.

 

The problem was that John doubted that was the case. He was not a genius, and he hadn’t mastered the science of deduction as Sherlock called it. But he did have some common sense. And contrary to what Sherlock (or Mary) thought, he did pay attention. He wasn’t as observant as they were, he’d give them that, but he wasn’t completely oblivious to what happened around him.

 

He had noticed how Sherlock treated Molly, just like he’d realised long ago that the poor girl had a thing for him -- a crush, probably. Perhaps something deeper, more complex. She pined after him. She catered to his every need and saw to the satisfaction of his whims, however ridiculous they were. And Sherlock wasn’t ignorant to the power he had over Dr. Hooper, or how very convenient it was to be on her good side. He took advantage of her every chance he got; John had seen it on the very day he met them both. Molly gave, Sherlock took. That’s how it worked for them. It was not fair, and John was often put off and angered by it.

 

It had gotten worse after the incident with James Moriarty. John didn’t know why, but he suspected Sherlock hadn’t forgiven Molly for dating that man. Even if at the time she believed he was a good fella from the IT department at the hospital. Even if Sherlock didn’t show any interest in Molly -- of the kind she craved from him, or any other kind for that matter. Perhaps it was a bad case of wounded male ego, just to mention one of the million possible reasons that came to mind. He could never be sure with Sherlock. What he knew for a fact was that he treated Molly Hooper like rubbish as of late.

 

John had been really crossed with Sherlock the day of Molly’s mugging. His behaviour had been shameful. He hadn’t shown an ounce of empathy or compassion. And there had been other cruel comments; he had called her coffee a ‘poor excuse for mud diluted in water.’ The young woman had looked positively mortified.

 

Sherlock knew how to be very harsh and rude when he wanted to. Anyone would think he was determined to crush Molly by the way he talked to her. John himself thought it, and it angered him. It infuriated him. It was so low, so maddening frustrating, to see how he took advantage of the girl’s feeling for him to make her do whatever he damn well pleased only to kick her to the kerb as if she were a piece of trash afterwards.

 

Could it be possible that Sherlock did not care about the damage he caused to Molly every time he opened his mouth in her presence? And could it be possible that he did not care about the damage Molly was (according to Mary’s observations) causing herself?

 

It was sad to admit it, but John knew it was possible. Worst of all, he would go as far as believing Molly had probably naturalized Sherlock's attitude and behaviour towards her (and yet it still affected her noticeably and greatly). And John believed Sherlock had naturalized it, too. Treating her like that, walking all over her- it was natural to him. So why should anyone be surprised he didn't care about whatever bad blood was running down her bridge?

 

“Penny for your thoughts.”

 

Mary, who had gone to the kitchen to make some tea, was standing by his side in front of the bookshelf with a tray in her hands.

 

“What you said at the supermarket about Dr. Hooper…” John started. But he didn't know exactly what to say or how to say it. Perhaps because he hadn't finished organizing his own thoughts and opinions. Would listening to Mary's make things clearer than they were at the moment? Or would it bring up more questions, more doubts about the nature of Sherlock's humanity? (Or whatever he could have that one might be able to consider something like it.)

 

She probably noticed his hesitation. She rarely interrupted people before they were done talking if she didn't think they were beginning to stumble over their words.

 

“Go on, take it. You can borrow it. I trust you with my books.” A ghost of a smile danced across her lips and shone briefly in her eyes.

 

“I beg your pardon?” John said, a little perplex.

 

“You want to borrow my copy of the _Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders_ ,” she gestured with her head to the heavy volume on the left of one of the top shelves. “You've been eyeing it intently for the past ten minutes while pretending to examine the contents of my bookshelves.”

 

How she even knew that given that he'd been alone in the sitting room while she made tea in the kitchen was beyond John's knowledge. He wasn't going to ask. He was past the point asking when it came to Sherlock, and he wasn't going to ask Mary how she knew these things.

 

“You want to read more about what Dr. Hooper is going through.”

 

“I do,” he admitted. “Why are you sure she's anorexic?”

 

“Let’s drink our tea before it gets cold, shall we?”

 

They sat on the sofa and Mary poured John a cup of tea just the way he liked it. She took a sip of her own cup before she answered the question she'd been asked.

 

“Two dozens cans of diet Coke, if not more. Several boxes of chocolate bars. Several boxes of Splenda.” She listed the contents of Molly's shopping trolley as if those items alone explained absolutely everything with a clarity worth of an erudite.

 

“She said she was hosting a party for her American friends.”

 

“I did not believe that for a second, John. One shops for a variety of things when one hosts a party. You see but you do not observe, John.” Mary placed her cup in the saucer. “Dark circles under her eyes. Thin appearance. Brittle nails. Baggy clothes to hide her extreme loss of weight. She had trouble focusing on the conversation, her thoughts seemed to be somewhere else the whole time we talked to her. And it wasn’t lack of interest, no,” Mary took another sip of her tea. “She was trying very hard to stay focused.”

 

Mary’s observations were not incorrect. Molly’s frame was small, but she had gotten thinner since the day John had met her and Sherlock at St. Bart’s. That was true. But her choice of clothing hadn’t changed much in his opinion (not that he understood much about women’s fashion, or fashion in general); the young pathologist had always favoured clothes that were too big on her- Sherlock never failed to comment on her jumpers and cardigans and how ugly he thought they were, how unflattering and oddly-matched they looked on her.

 

The dark circles under her eyes had always been there, too. But they were more pronounced now, but he hadn’t paid much attention to them before- he was a doctor himself, he knew about the stressful working conditions medical professionals were under, especially when they had long shifts. The morgue and lab at the hospital surely weren’t a walk in the park. The nails? Well, working with different chemicals can do all sort of things to your hands and nails.

 

And for the rest- as far as he knew, Molly was a shy, reserved person- perhaps he shouldn’t have approached her at the supermarket and just let her go about her business without making her interact with him and the woman he was dating. Some people didn’t like small talk. Maybe she had other things in her mind, maybe she was just off a shift at the hospital and dead on her feet.

 

He said all of this to Mary, who listened patiently and in silence. She was finishing her second cup of tea when John was done talking. Mary, as an experienced nurse, was very familiar with all of what he mentioned: the long shifts, the tiredness, the chemicals that left you with dry skin in your hands and brittle nails. And yet, she believed that there was more to Molly’s thin, exhausted appearance than what met the eye. John knew so before she spoke. And he also anticipated the words Mary said before she said them, because deep inside he knew them to be true:

 

“You are reluctant to believe she is anorexic. If I didn't know you any better I'd think you made your medical degree with Microsoft Paint, printed it off and hung it on the wall for showing. But it's not the case, John. Admitting she has got a serious health issue that is probably going unnoticed by everyone else has you standing in an awkward position. Because you don’t know whether it’s your place to say something or not. And if you decide to say something, then to whom should you say it? And what happens if you choose to look the other way and don’t say anything?”

 

Her voice was, as always, very calm. It was one of the things that made John attracted to Mary in the first place: her voice, the way she spoke, the words she used. She had a beautiful way with words, and when they first became acquaintances he could have sworn he fell under the spell of her melodic tone and impeccable oratory skills.

 

What he also liked about Mary Morstan was her honesty. Brutal in content, but laid out with elegance and grace, she never hesitated when it came to calling a spade a spade. She saw right through John and told him so without so much as a flinch. The things he had missed about Molly Hooper, Mary had noticed and pointed out fit perfectly like the pieces of a puzzle. The problem was he didn’t know if that puzzle was his to solve.

 

“Is it my place to say something to begin with?”

 

“I don’t know, John. Is it?” Mary smiled at him while she poured him some more tea. “If she were your sister, or a friend, wouldn’t you like her to be noticed? Wouldn’t you want someone to say something if they noticed?” It was not a rhetorical question, nor did she make it sound as if there was a correct answer and an incorrect one. John was entitled to his own opinion on the matter, as was she.

 

He nodded his head in the affirmative.

 

“Well,” Mary said “Molly could be someone's friend, someone's sister. Don't you think they would appreciate it if you said something about an issue that for several reasons could have gone unnoticed by them until now? And what if she is not someone’s sister or someone's friend?” An acidic sensation in the pit of his stomach told John that that was probably the case. “Wouldn't you like to change that?”

 

Mary's big, expectant beautiful eyes were looking right into his, and Dr. John Watson was sure they could see his soul. That woman was dangerous, and he should have known better: not only was she making him fall in love with her, she also knew what was in his heart before John himself did.

 

“Of course I'd like to help her if I can,” he said. “I don't know how, though. We don't even know if it's anorexia…”

 

Mary interrupted him:

 

“It's true, we don't. Maybe it's not just only that. Maybe there's more. But there is sadness in that girl's eyes and the chance that nothing is being done about that. If you don't want to get too involved, then maybe Sherlock could help. You met her through him, after all. Are they friends?”

 

 _No, they are not_ , John thought. _The girl is infatuated with him and the bloody bastard walks all over her, cleaning the dirt off his shoes as if she were his very own doormat._

 

“I don't think they are,” he simply said. He didn't want to go into it. He didn't feel ready to tell Mary about the thoughts that had been in his head before when he'd been standing in front of the bookshelves and she'd been in the kitchen making tea.

 

“I think you should be her friend, then.”

 

“I don't think I can walk into the morgue and greet her with a, ‘ _Hello, Molly, how are you? By the way do you have an eating disorder I could help you seeking treatment for if you haven't yet?’_ ”

 

“I didn't tell you to do that. I said you should be her friend. Let's ask her over for tea,” Mary suggested. “Let’s ask Sherlock, too. It would take off some of the pressure for Molly if she is shy. We can tell her I'd like to get to know your friends better and that when you suggested having Sherlock over for tea I mentioned I'd like her to join us, too.”

 

“I think it'd be better to leave Sherlock out of this for now.” If Mary had any questions about this statement, she asked none. “But, I’ll see about inviting Molly for a cuppa.”

 

Satisfied with where the conversation had taken them, Mary took the tray and the empty cups back to the kitchen. He followed her and offered to set up the dishwasher.

 

“You can borrow the diagnostic manual if you want,” Mary said. “Take it home, read some more about eating disorders. Although to be honest I was hoping that you'd want to stay the night.”

 

“That would be nice.”

 

“What?” She smiled at him like the cat that got the cream. “Borrowing the book from me or spending the night together?”

 

He felt a grin tugging at his lips, and when she leaned closer and kissed the corner of his mouth as he whispered 'both,’ Dr. John Watson had a feeling that one day in future he would marry Mary Morstan.

  
He hoped by then Dr. Molly Hooper would be their friend and rid of whatever it was that made her doe-like eyes opaque with sadness.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

The discomfort in her throat had kept her awake for most of the night. So, one foggy morning in early November Molly Hooper wrote on her blog about the complications of self-induced vomit for the first time. She felt it sore and swollen. Swallowing hurt, vomiting hurt, but the need to purge herself persisted. If she couldn’t be rid of the emotional poison intoxicating her body by pushing something down her throat, then writing was the best next thing.

 

 

 

> **November 5**
> 
> **Sore throat**
> 
> I thought my knowledge of the human body would place myself in an advantageous position and make it easier to prevent discomforts like these. I know the nails scratch and bruise the back of the throat in cases of self-induced vomit if you do it quite often, which can be very painful. That is why I never use _only_ my two fingers as to not scratch the back of my throat all the time. I alternate with a tongue depressor. I carry some around in my pocket at work and I have a few in the bathroom at my flat. But I must admit that pushing down my two own fingers is a lot more satisfactory. This is why I prefer that method to the tongue depressor six out of ten times. I never thought it would become a problem because I’ve always been very careful not to scratch too much (even when I am in a rush to feel the relief washing over me), and my nails are always very short and clean. I believed I had everything under control.
> 
> And yet today I find myself adding a sore throat to the list of reasons why I can’t sleep well at night.
> 
> I know someone (I will call him ‘a friend’ here to simplify matters) who says he 'always misses something’ when he fails to notice a certain detail that should have been obvious from the start. He is very observant and so obscenely intelligent his brain is always burning with it. That is not to say I am not intelligent - in fact, my intelligence is one of the few things I've learned to appreciate about myself. But if a beautiful mind like his misses important details sometimes, then what's left for someone who doesn't possess the intellect of a demi-god?
> 
> What I missed were stomach acids and bile. The soreness in my throat is due to the raw areas that have been affected by constant exposure to the bile and the acids. I was so concerned with not hurting myself with my nails and fingers that I forgot about the corrosive substances the human body expels. It is almost ironic, perhaps even metaphorical. I vomit because it makes me feel lighter and clean, because the act of purging rids me of the emotions that consume and harm me. But before they fully leave my body they harm me one more time on their way out.
> 
>  
> 
> **Posted by Atelophobic on ‘Anatomy of an empty stomach’**

 

 

Writing was a relief- a different kind, but a relief nonetheless. Words felt heavier in her heart than what little food in her stomach. But when she wrote she released the poison running through her veins. And for a little while she felt empty, and light, and free. It never lasted long, though, and she always ended up needing more.

 

The blog was the perfect outlet; she didn't always eat enough to self-induce vomit afterwards (and now she'd have to wait for the rawness in her throat to heal before she could vomit periodically again), but she could write as much as she wanted (or as much as her food-deprived brain allowed her).

 

The written word didn’t betray her: she didn’t stutter, she didn’t stammer, she didn’t embarrass herself into sheer mortification. She wrote about herself and for herself, honesty as raw as the skin at the back of her throat dripping from every sentence. Sometimes the entries were short, lists of what she ate that day and how many calories there were per portion. Other entries were longer, more detailed, the likes of the one written on that cloudy morning in early November.

 

Contrary to what had happened the last time she'd ventured into blogging, no one knew about 'Anatomy of an empty stomach’. No one ever left any comments, no one visited it. It was as though it did not exist, unnoticed in an expanding virtual world where everyone had something to say and was desperate to be heard and seen. But she didn’t. When you grow used to only being noticed or addressed as a worthy human being by someone else only when they need something from you, loneliness and silence hurt less than false hope. She had gotten used to being isolated, ignored and left behind. She had learned how to make herself as small as possible as to not bother anyone or bring attention to herself. She didn’t want to be heard or seen.

 

(But wasn’t she doing this to get a certain consulting detective’s attention? Did she not want to be seen by him, heard by him, noticed by him? Wasn’t she desperate to have him look at her as if she were the only mystery worth solving? A mystery, a puzzle, a case- whatever he wanted to call it, she really did not care what name he gave it so as long as he treated her with kindness and respect for genuine reasons and not to butter her up in order to get his way).

 

She had made sure the blog could not be traced back to her. She had learned from the mistakes she’d made with her other blog, that pink monstrosity adorned with kittens and glittery letters. Her name was nowhere to be found in this one; she signed with a pseudonym. (She chose ‘Atelophobic’ because she felt that word described her perfectly: she lived in constant fear she was not good enough.) ‘Anatomy of an empty stomach’ and Dr. Molly Hooper were in no way related. The person behind the words and the youngest pathologist at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital could in no way be linked.

 

The blog and its contents were hers and hers only. And it was perfect.

 

She hit the ‘publish’ button and then went to the kitchen to get some ice chips. The ice had no calories and the cold would numb her sore throat. If she kept one at the time in the back of her throat until it dissolved, it would hurt less than swallowing down bottled water straight out of the fridge. She had started a course of antibiotics the night before- if there was any bacteria in the damaged tissue (as there was bound to be) then the Strepsils would take care of it. The last thing she needed was a serious throat infection. She had that and the following day off, so she was hoping that she would be feeling a lot better in forty eight hours.

 

According to Molly’s estimations, she would have to wait at least a week before she started purging again, but there were other ways she could find pleasure and relief that didn’t involve vomiting- writing, for example. She wasn’t an addict. She could go without it. She _was choosing_ to go without it. If she were an addict, she wouldn’t be able to stop when she wanted. She _wouldn’t want_ to stop. An addict would keep on pushing their fingers down their throat even if they hurt the skin there so much they ended up spatting threads of blood. An addict would not care about a possible infection or its consequences, or pay attention to the warning signs that may indicate their health was endangered. An addict would not give a damn if they died from their compulsive behaviour.

 

And Molly Hooper was not an addict.

 

She had made up her mind when she’d started on the experiment: she would not die from this. She had the situation under control, and not the other way around. This wasn’t an illness, she didn’t have an eating disorder. She was a doctor, a scientist. She was experimenting. This was an experiment. What she was doing consisted of procedures and operations with the purpose of discovering something. The only difference between this and what she did in the morgue and the laboratory at the hospital was that she played both the roles of observer and test subject. It happened very often in the field of science- she wouldn’t be the first nor the last. The motivations behind this little project of hers may be personal, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t acting professionally about it.

 

 _I am not an addict to purging. I don’t have an eating disorder,_ she reassured herself.  

 

Wrapped in two thick woolen blankets and with her head propped up by a couple of cushions, she tried to get comfortable on the sofa to watch some telly, some documentary about penguins. She loved penguins, they had always been her favourite oviparous. Molly tried to pay attention, but she couldn’t stay focused. She was exhausted, sleep-deprived and so very cold. As winter approached, her body’s poor temperature regulation mechanisms were more obvious. If she would have to wait a whole week before starting to vomit again, then she would have to eat very little amounts of food to compensate. It would be interesting to compare that week’s results to the previous one’s. She’d follow the meal plan she had begun with months ago to the foot of the letter like she used to before she discovered the pleasure of self-induced vomiting.

 

 _You have everything under control,_ she smiled to herself. _You’ve been working so hard_. _The state of your throat is proof to your hard work._ Most of the time the voice inside her head sounded like Sherlock’s, except when she was in a good mood, which was the case that morning. On the rare occasions that she complimented or thought nice things about herself, it sounded a lot like that of her mother’s. _You deserve to enjoy your day off. Turn off your thoughts and enjoy the documentary. You are doing great, Molly._

 

She tried to focus her attention on the documentary, but her eyelids kept closing. She felt so tired and cold, almost lethargic. Perhaps she could watch the documentary another time. The narrator’s voice reminded her an awful lot of Sherlock’s. _Funny, isn’t it? My brain is so addled with my love for him it finds excuses to hear him everywhere. I am so stupid for craving him to the point it takes up all the room in my mind._

 

It wasn’t completely true, though. Sherlock Holmes was no longer the only thought consuming her. The experiment had become as important as him. It soothed her where he hurt her, it calmed her where he tormented her. The experiment played in Molly Hooper’s life a role opposite to Sherlock Holmes’. It didn’t make things better (it hadn’t made things better _yet_ ) but it cancelled out the chaos his existence caused in hers ever since their paths had crossed and she had fallen under his spell. The experiment made things even: she had absolute control over something whereas in all other aspects of her life she felt adrift. But the experiment was so important it made all the difference.

 

 _I am so happy I have this_ , she thought, a yawn making her face full of little wrinkles. How she wished he was there to kiss them all, every single wrinkle in her face. And her nose. She wanted him to kiss her nose more than any other thing in the world. His big hands and long fingers cupping her cheeks, his lips peppering her nose with little kisses. She wanted that sweet intimacy more than she craved perfection. _Stop thinking about what you don't have,_ she scolded herself. _Think of what you do have. Think of your experiment, how perfect and beautiful it is. How perfect and beautiful you will be when it's complete._

 

Sore throat and all (although the ice chips and the Strepsils were making it better) she managed to fall asleep with the penguin documentary as white noise playing in the background. She wasn't paying much attention, though, for she was otherwise preoccupied thinking of her precious experiment and counting in her head all the calories she'll eat during the following week (enough to keep herself from passing out from starvation.)

 

 _You have everything under control, Molly_ , she said to herself. _Ice chips and Strepsils until your throat is better. No vomiting for a weak. Follow the meal plan and you will be only eating the calories you need, no more no less. You have everything under control. You will not die from this._

 

She woke up five hours later, pins and needles in her arms and legs. It was something that was happening more and more frequently as of late, she would wake up with all her limbs numb. She sort of liked it. She enjoyed the numbness. Sometimes when she also had a migraine at the same time she felt so light and empty headed it was exquisite when combined with the physical illusion of not inhabiting her body.

 

She stayed on the couch for another hour, looking at the ceiling and touching her ribs to feel her progress. It was not good enough yet, it was not perfect. But she was getting there. Slow and easy win the race, her mother used to tell her when she got frustrated over something.

 

Everything seemed sort of slow when she went for hours on an empty stomach. She enjoyed that, too. It made her gain perspective. She saw things clearer. She understood more. Better. He was right: nothing could slow you down, the world slowed for you and put itself at your mercy when you didn't contaminate your body with unnecessary nutrients to process. Eating and vomiting was wonderful because of the satisfaction she got from purging herself of her inner demons. But not eating at all was as good. Sometimes she wished she could give up food altogether, but Molly knew it was not possible.

 

She made her way to the kitchen to grab a glass of diet Coke and eat a carrot. She had skipped lunch, had slept through it, but the glass of Coke and the carrot would do nicely. Her mobile phone was plugged in one of the outlets in her kitchen. She checked it and saw she had one new text message.

 

It was from Dr. John Watson.

 

 

 

> **4:14 pm**
> 
> Hello Molly! Mary loved meeting you the other day. She suggested we got together for a cuppa some time soon. I was at St. Bart's and Mike told me you have today and tomorrow off. Let me know if tomorrow around 4 pm works for you.

 

 

Molly stared at the screen and read the text three times. She was sure she hadn't made a good impression several days ago when the couple had run into her at Tesco. She had anxiety, a stuttering problem and was completely inept in social situations. Why would John's girlfriend want to get together for tea?

 

 _Why would anyone want to spend any time with you, Molly Hooper?_ _Who would want to waste their time on you, you useless excuse for a human being?_

 

There it was again: the voice that sounded like Sherlock's. It hurt to hear those words reverberating inside her head in the voice of the man she adored, telling her how useless she was and how no one could ever care for her or want her.

 

_It hurts because it's true, Molly. It hurts because you know it is exactly like that, you mousy, pathetic thing. Why would anyone want to spend time with you when even you hate being yourself?_

 

“Shut up,” she whispered out loud between gritted teeth. She closed her eyes with such force that she saw dancing little yellow lights behind her eyelids. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

 

She picked up the mobile from the counter and started typing almost feverishly, her vision blurred as her thumbs hit every letter. She put the phone back on the counter after she hit 'send’.

 

“I'll prove you wrong,” Molly said out loud to the voice in her head. “I'll prove you wrong.”

 

She just accepted John and Mary's invitation to tea the following afternoon. She didn't think of all that it implied: tea involved scones, and toast, and pastries, and milk and sugar. It involved eating and calories. And she would not be able to throw any of it up because of how bad her throat was. Molly didn't think of that when she agreed to spending the afternoon making small talk with a woman she had only seen once for five minutes in a supermarket aisle and the flatmate and best friend of the man she was hopelessly in love with. She just typed an answer in order to make the voices in her head shut up. She wanted to prove them wrong. She could be someone interesting and nice to have around. If John and Mary wanted her to join them for tea, then she would.

 

“I'll prove you wrong,” she whispered once more, her knuckles turning white because she was holding onto the counter with too much force; she was so light-headed her legs were having a hard time supporting the weight of her body. (And wasn't that ironic?)

 

When she got a text from John ten minutes later confirming the venue and time for their encounter the following day, she turned the phone off and went to her desk where her laptop was. She felt like purging, she wanted it so badly it was burning her. But she knew she didn't have to. Not until her throat was better. So she would write. She'd purge herself by pouring the words onto the blank screen. She'd write another entry, maybe about how bad she wished she could go to the bathroom, push two fingers down her throat and take all the poison out of her body by vomiting until she was dry heaving.

 

She logged in her blog and noticed something that had never happened before: she had a notification. Someone had left a comment on her latest entry.

 

 

 

> **November 5**
> 
> **Ellie** on **Sore throat**
> 
> Extremely cold drinks help me with my sore throat. If you don't mind the calories, I've heard milk helps, too. I don't drink it, I just drink water. But a friend of mine drinks milk with honey for her sore throat. She then loses the calories by purging all week once her throat is better. I hope this helps. Take care!

 

 

Molly stared at the screen, for how long exactly she didn't know. She scrolled down and saw this girl had liked several of her older entries. Someone was interacting with her, giving her advice on what to do for her discomfort. She knew about the cold drinks (that was why she had been using the ice chips). She knew about the milk and honey too, but she had dismissed this idea for the same reason this person did: milk and honey meant unnecessary calories.

 

She thought of deleting the comment. She felt violated. Someone had discovered her experiment. Someone that was probably doing something similar. Should she reply to her? What should she say? Did this person have everyone under control like she did? Could they stop whenever they wanted to? Or were they ill? Did this person have an eating disorder? What should she reply to her? She didn't want to engage with anyone online. She remembered too freshly what had happened the last time she had interacted with someone through her blog. But why has she posted all these entries if she didn't want someone to reach out to her, even if they were hiding behind a computer screen? Had she been waiting for this the whole time without realizing that it was what she wanted from it?

 

She chose not to reply. But she also chose not to change her blog settings to 'private’. Was it true she did not want to be seen or heard by anyone but the world's only consulting detective? What did it say about her that the comment written by this person named Ellie made her feel less alone somehow?

 

Pondering those thoughts gave her a terrible headache. Thank God she wasn't expected at work the following day, for she was sure she had another sleepless night ahead of herself.

 

_It's all part of the experiment. It's all part of the experiment._

 

She ate another carrot, drank two cans of diet Coke and went to bury herself under three blankets in her bed. She didn't sleep well that night, but not only because she had a sore throat and a migraine. She didn't sleep because she couldn't stop thinking about what her erratic behaviour could mean, if it was a result of the experiment or if she had been like that before it all started.

 

She dozed off a little when dawn was nearing. She kept repeating the same words over and over again like a mantra.

 

_I will not die from this._


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder, self-harm, past drug use and explicit sexual content.

The first time they met he felt off balance. Her face, her small lips, her delicate frame hidden under that monstrosity of a jumper two sizes too big, her awkward attempt at morbid humor, her obvious stammering disorder - she hit him worse than any drug he'd ever dared inject into his system. The caress of the needle, the pressure of the rubber band around his arm, the bliss and the oblivion that followed every score - none of that had ever made him lose his balance. If anything, drugs had always allowed him to regain and maintain control. And yet a young girl with a ponytail better suited to a high school student than to a university graduate with a medical degree managed to just do that in under five minutes.

 

Dr. Stamford and Detective Inspector Lestrade had introduced them. She’d stammered through the whole social aspect of the conversation, but then when it’d been time to discuss the case that had brought him to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital there hadn’t been any hesitations: her tone and voice had been loud and clear, the information precise. The autopsy she’d finished performing right before their arrival deserved all the praise he’d never afford to another human being with a pulse (nothing like his dead composers, whom he appreciated, of course.) Her knowledge of the field had left him speechless.

 

Before they left, she’d made a terrible pun followed by the comment _Morgue jokes will never de-cease to amuse me_. And then she had half snorted, half laughed, her doe-like eyes lit up accompanying the muscles that pulled at the corners of her small mouth. (And why had he not been able to stop looking at that bloody mouth? Why had he found it impossible to stop paying attention to every single word coming out of it?) He’d known the moment he heard her laughter: the youngest pathologist to have ever walked the corridors at St. Bart’s possessed an ability that automatically turned her into a potential threat, more toxic and dangerous than any drug he’d ever experimented on himself with.

 

She had the ability to make him _want._

 

There was something about her laughter, the wrinkles that formed around her nose when she smiled, her petite frame that she put so much effort into hiding from the eyes of others under clothes that were overall ugly and particularly unflattening for her, that made him want to push her up against the nearest wall and wrap her in his arms.

 

He’d never craved another’s embrace. He’d never expected himself to feel that way - he’d always thought he just didn’t have the capacity, the ability to feel something like it, that he was wired in a way that made him unable to experience emotions the way others did. He supposed he had been born without it, that something was amiss and that whatever it was that he didn’t have couldn’t be learned or forced into growing. He didn’t care about it, either. He didn’t need it. He never wished he had it. His sociopathic tendencies were incompatible with forming emotional, affective bonds- he understood that- and he didn’t have a problem with it because it was an advantage. Many intelligent men had met their downfalls at the hands of sentiment, and the great Sherlock Holmes didn’t intend to count himself among them.

 

Contrary to what his beloved older brother thought and the rumors that the media insisted on spreading, he _had_ had sex with women - when he attended university first, and then during his time as a frequent visitor of drug dens of all kinds. He had experimented with it out of curiosity and mostly to prove his hypothesis. He never enjoyed it. It was too mechanic, and whether under the influence or completely sober, he’d never felt any connection beyond the physical aspects of the act, possibly thanks to stimuli to an erogenous zone in his body that had no connection to sentiment whatsoever. He was a functional specimen of a male human, capable of having and maintaining an erection - that was biology. Being inside a woman, her vaginal muscles contracting around his hard cock right before they orgasmed - it didn’t cause any effects or sensations different than those that came with relieving himself through masturbation, and that was his prefered way to deal with urges he deemed merely animal.  

 

And yet, upon first meeting, if only for a split second, the young pathologist had him _wanting_ absolutely everything he was sure he had not been made for.

 

 _Intimacy._ Dr. Molly Hooper made him crave intimacy. Not with any human being, no. She made him want whatever intimacy could be achieved and shared between the two of them. With _her_.

 

He’d automatically pushed the feeling away to the back of his Mind Palace for further examination and deletion. The latter proved to be impossible, which only added to his resolution to push _her_ as far away as possible. What difficulties could he be faced with? He supposed none. People didn't usually require much persuasion to stay the bloody hell away from him. He was generally disliked, and those who knew him often warned anyone that stood a chance at having the displeasure of becoming acquainted with him. In fact, at the time he'd had no reasons to believe that young Dr. Hooper had not already been advised by Detective Inspector Lestrade or Dr. Stamford. (And yet she had been so nice to him, so bloody nice, that if anything he'd been scared he would be the one to find it hard to stay the fuck away from _her_.)

 

He chose _her_ as _his_ pathologist at St. Bart's, though. He told himself there were coherent, important reasons to justify this course of action. They were very well organized in his Mind Palace (where Dr. Molly Hooper had picked a room for herself in spite of his attempts to delete her from it altogether):

 

  * She was the only professional at St. Bart’s willing to collaborate with him. She was also the best, a detail that had certainly played a part in his choosing her as his preferred forensics specialist. She proved to be a willing participant in his experiments, letting him work in the lab or the morgue as he pleased and even providing him with body parts when needed. As lead pathologist (impressive, given her age), Dr. Hooper had free access to locations and equipment that appealed to the interests and activities of a certain consulting detective.  
  * She was very easy to manipulate - experience had taught Sherlock Holmes that everyone was if you knew what to look for and how hard to press. Dr. Hooper had very low self-esteem: she hid her body under horrid clothes, she stammered a lot when she talked in social settings, and she held herself with the utmost self-consciousness. If he knew when and how to pay her compliments on her looks, she was bound to become putty in his hands. All the women Sherlock knew, his own mother included, were like that: pay them a compliment and then play them to your advantage. Dr. Hooper was not any different. The problem was that if he wanted to push her away for his own sake, then knowing how to play her through wisely chosen compliments could also be a downside for himself. He'd have to go carefully about it if he didn't want to cause the contrary effect and have her get too close for comfort.



 

Which led to the third reason why Dr. Hooper was the perfect pathologist for Sherlock Holmes:

  * She bruised easily, in both the literal and metaphorical sense of the word. She was physically fragile, and the same fragility extended to her on an emotional level. She gave emotions a weight that was the exact opposite of Sherlock's perspective: it mattered too much to her (if it didn't, then she wouldn't have self-esteem issues to begin with). For every compliment he paid her to have his way with whatever necessity a case made arise, he was capable of thinking right on the spot ten harsh, crude comments so rude and cold they'd have her wishing she had never met him. She would continue to help him, though - he had thought this through, he wouldn't be endangering his benefits at St. Bart's by being a bastard to the queen of its Morgue. She would continue to offer him her help and whatever else he pleased because Dr. Hooper didn't know the first thing about standing up for herself and not letting others walk all over her. She lived to please others in the hopes that they would like her. But _he_ wouldn't. He wouldn't let himself like her, or let her like him. He'd use her like he did everyone else, keep her at arm's length, compliment her when necessary and then push her away once he was done needing her.



 

(But he was never done needing her. And oh, wasn’t that a major inconvenience for someone like the great Sherlock Holmes? He didn’t _need_ . He didn’t _want_ . And yet he needed her- worse: wanted- Molly Hooper. No matter how hard or how far away he pushed her, _it never stopped_. What was he supposed to make of that? If he always missed something, then what was he missing here?)

 

And so that was the dynamic he set for his and Dr. Hooper’s professional relationship. He asked and demanded. She gave, and gave, and gave; he bled her dry. And he took, like he’d always done. He was nice to her when convenient and necessary; he found that it wasn’t often that she didn’t offer him whatever the bloody hell he wanted on a silver plate without him having to play the part first. He spent the rest of the time in her presence being harsh and cruel, humiliating her even. He had to push her away and make her emotionally unreachable and unavailable should he lose his head one day or should the walls strategically built around himself crumble and fall.

 

The plan worked very well, for the most part. He was in control. He had the equilibrium he desired, the potential threat neutralized. He did it through self-repression and using methods that would have ashamed his dear mother, but he didn't care. (He was not a caring person, he was a high-functioning sociopath - and whoever didn’t understand what that meant, they were welcome to do their research.)  

 

His carefully laid course of action was a success with the Dr. Molly Hooper that had a beating heart, and breathed, and walked, and talked, and performed post-mortems beautifully as if the measuring of organs and sewing-back-together of corpses were a fine art. The Dr. Molly Hooper in his Mind Palace was not as easy to deal with as her real life counterpart.

 

The pathologist in his Mind Palace visited him frequently. Her preferred time was very early in the morning when he woke up with his prick hard as a rock. Thoughts of her weren't the cause of his massive erections, no. That was pure, predictable biology: he had a functioning male human body and an erect penis in the mornings was something he'd dealt with since puberty. The problem laid in _how_ he dealt with this problem now. His masturbation routine had never involved sexual fantasies of any kind. He had always taken himself in hand and fisted his cock up and down mechanically until he reached the _biological_ release his body needed for _biological_ reasons. He had never thought of anyone nor recounted his sexual experiences whilst he did so. He didn't need to because he knew the mechanics of what had to be done to rid himself of the erection, and as it should be with all things biological there was not necessary for emotions to be involved. He wasn't an emotional person, he didn't need to think of a woman to masturbate successfully.

 

But now, every time it happened, _she_ wouldn't let him be. _She_ would insist and insist until he allowed her to drag him in with her into her room in his Mind Palace whilst he stroke his length up and down. And he couldn't fight her. He couldn't deny her. It was a mystery he was desperate to solve and that frustrated him because he didn't know how to solve it. So now his morning masturbation routine took place _in_ his Mind Palace _, in_ the room _she_ owned and with _her in it_.

 

He hadn't given up control altogether, no. If she insisted on being a part of it, then at least he'd get a say in how it happened. _That_ he could very much control. And so that was how now he masturbated to obscenely explicit fantasies of Dr. Molly Hooper.

 

He would always sit on the couch and make her straddle his lap. Her hands would be tied behind her back (the fact that they were always tied with his own blue scarf was a detail he didn't wish to analyze.) He'd never touch an inch of her, even though his hands would remain free from any restrictions other than those inside his mind. He'd make her rub her sex up and down the length of his first, controlling the phase with his words - she'd always have to do his bidding, she'd never get to choose. He'd tell her when to moan softly and when to bite her lips to shut her cries of pleasure completely. He'd wait until he had his cock too stained by the traces of her arousal before granting her permission to sink down on it. And then he'd tell her how to move, and when, and at what pace. He'd tell her when to stay still, too, for there would be moments he'd only want to watch her perfect face whilst he was hard inside of her and denying her release. He'd never let her come before he told her she could, and if he sensed she was close he'd always know what changes were needed in the rhythm to send her three steps back and away from her orgasm. And so he'd keep her like that for as long as he could stay hard, and he'd only let her come right before he did. For some reason he also didn't wish to examine, the contact would always be skin to skin (which was weird since he didn't know how that felt - he had not gone once inside a woman's vagina without wearing a condom.) And he'd always come inside her.

 

In his fantasies the play was all consensual and she enjoyed every minute, every bloody second of it. He didn't want to examine what that meant either, for he knew that it meant that at some point the Molly in his Mind Palace and himself would have had to sit down and talk about the rules of their sexual relationship so it would be comfortable and pleasurable for the both of them. He had never had sex that was not consensual, but he had never cared about the pleasure of the woman beneath or above him. He was certain none of them had had an orgasm with his cock inside them. (He had never given any of them oral sex either; he hadn’t been interested in anything that didn't contribute to his exploration and experiment of his very own pleasure.) He found himself caring for the Molly in his Mind Palace (and when and how had she become just _Molly_? Since when was she no longer Dr. Molly Hooper?) Even if he wanted to have _all_ the control in the fantasy, he cared about her pleasure and well-being.

 

He cared more about the figment of his imagination that resembled the real Molly than he did for the real Molly whom he mistreated and humiliated on a regular basis. All the more reason to want to keep the real world Molly away from him. If the Molly in the Mind Palace had such power over him, then he was scared to think what could happen if he stopped his efforts to push the woman made of flesh and bones as far away from him as possible (all without losing his privileges at St. Bart’s, of course.)

 

Sherlock had known upfront that he’d be dancing on a thin line if he chose to work with her. He’d made the choice with his eyes wide open, or so he had thought at the time. Had he believed he'd be able to treat it as an experiment? Maybe. He'd sensed a threat in her so he'd decided to become immune to it by exposing himself to her _just a little_ so he'd be able to fight her effects from within. It made sense. It was science, after all. And he was a man of science. The Molly in the Mind Palace was the little poison he had had to allow into his system in order to become immune to the Molly in the flesh. If allowing the imaginary version to fuck him every morning whilst he masturbated was the price he had to pay in exchange for never succumbing to the wanton awakened by the real one, then so be it.

 

A year into the experiment he found himself looking forward to waking up hard like steel so he could have the Molly in the Mind Palace sit on his prick and moan in his ear while he guided her on how to get herself off. But he could control that, he could neutralize that, and it wasn't like he was masturbating _more_ than he used to. He was just looking forward to it. It didn't matter. He still had all the control, he was still balanced. The experiment was being conducted on his terms. It still worked.

 

It worked well under those terms and conditions for some time, until one day it didn't anymore.

 

John Watson was to blame, he supposed, if not completely then at least partially (although for Sherlock it was always easier and much more convenient to blame others completely for whatever went wrong with his life.) By becoming his first genuine friend, the former soldier destroyed the prejudice that Sherlock Holmes could not bond healthily with another human being and under his own volition.

 

Living with John, working with him, sharing more than the crime-solving business and the bills, made Sherlock Holmes less of a freak and more of a human. He had a friend. Everyone had friends. He did possess the ability to care about someone and bonding with them after all. He was not the best at it, he was not the most conventional friend one could have, he was still a sociopath, but the truth was that he had a friend.

 

He'd let John Watson into his life and allowed himself a friendship with the doctor. That was dangerous. That was a red flag, and he should have known better than to let that happen. For today was a friendship with his flatmate, but tomorrow it could be something much deeper with a certain pathologist with doe-like eyes.

 

He'd been so jealous when she introduced them to James Moriarty. At the time he had passed as an homosexual IT employee at St. Bart's. He knew right away that the man had no interest in Molly and was only using her, but what for? Maybe he didn't want his friends and family to find out he was gay. Sherlock hadn't cared about the reason at the time. He had been too busy trying not to let jealousy eat him whole from the inside. He hadn't recognized it as such at the time, and it had been days until he had the opportunity for proper scrutiny and further cataloguing. It had taken him time to arrive to the right conclusion, for he'd never had a jealous bone in his body. (More proof of how toxic Dr. Molly Hooper was to him. She made him _want,_ and _need_ , and the prospect of her interested in another man had him sick with _jealousy,_ even if not a muscle twitched in his face whilst it all happened.)

 

And she made him _fear._ John Watson had that effect on him too, the bloody bastard of a friend he had now (Sherlock Holmes! A friend! Even his mother had telephoned him to confirm it was true.) They both made him fear he'd lose them. He had been scared for John when Moriarty had strapped a bomb to him, and then when he had realized how close that psychotic criminal had gotten to _his_ pathologist he had feared for what could have happened, what he could have done to her. _Fear_ of something that wasn't and wouldn't be. (Or would it? No, he didn't think so. Molly had been means to an end for Moriarty, a way to have a first glimpse at him. A way to show him how good he was at hiding at plain sight. Molly didn't count for Moriarty, not really. She meant nothing, she didn't matter.)

 

That's when he knew he had to double his efforts to push her away and distance himself away from her as much as possible. The experiment was not working anymore, at least not in the same conditions as before. There were new variables, new data to considered, and Einstein himself had said that if you do the same thing over and over again you will always get the same results. The results he was getting didn't satisfy him anymore, therefore he had to do something different if he wanted new outcomes.

 

That was the reason behind the heightened bitterness, the harshness, the cruelty: self preservation. He was protecting himself from the threat she represented to his system, worse and more toxic than any drugs he knew of, any drugs he'd taken before. He only visited Bart's when strictly necessary now, taking a lot of cases that didn't involve working at the lab or examining corpses at the morgue. He avoided his pathologist as much as he could (and why in the bloody hell did he still think of her as _his_ ), and when it was imperative that he saw her he made sure he teared her apart with his comments and deductions.

 

He had to fight fire with firewood if he didn't want to be consumed by it. He wouldn't let her win. He wouldn't let himself care for her. Caring was a disadvantage he was in no position to afford.

 

Those were the words he told himself constantly, a mantra of sorts.

 

_Caring is not an advantage._


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder, low self-esteem, and self-harm.

The first thought that crossed Molly Hooper’s mind when she woke up around noon was that she should not have agreed to meet with John and Mary for tea later that day. She had had a terrible night, unable to fall asleep until around half past five. The antibiotics and ice chips had done nothing for her sore throat, and her head was throbbing with pain. She wanted nothing but to stay buried under one thick woolen blanket up the other. Her whole body felt too heavy for her to carry out of her bed, let alone out of her flat. Even if she did want to get up, take a shower and get dressed, it was unlikely she'd be able to do all of that without passing out while brushing her teeth like she had once some months ago. She knew the signs: she knew the moment she stood up her vision would get blurred and her head would begin spinning until she backed out. It had been a long time since she’d last felt this weak, and in that occasion she had gone on for several days without eating anything solid before her knees gave out and she found herself passed out on the bathroom floor with her mouth full of toothpaste. She had eaten two whole carrots and drank two cans of diet Coke the day before, and those she had kept down. Perhaps that was the problem: her organism had grown accustomed to regular purgings following every meal and her stopping had upset it. She did feel nauseated. Molly worried that she would throw up without the need to force it on herself, and even though it would be a huge relief (both emotionally and physically) she hoped that she didn't because her throat hurt too much. She had to avoid stomach acid for at least a week.

 

She lay there with her eyes closed for what could have been two minutes or twenty, until a warm weight settled on her legs and she heard a low purring followed by a meow. She opened one eye to see her cat, Toby, looking at her with those big amber coloured irises of his. He meowed once more before he began kneading her alternating his paws rhythmically, pushing in and out against her lap. Molly let her eyelids drop again and allowed herself to enjoy the only physical contact she had on a regular basis with a living, breathing being. Her social awkwardness and ineptness led to loneliness and isolation. She wanted skin to skin contact, craved it even, but the only time she touched people was when she did post mortems in her cold realm of a hospital morgue. She touched cadavers in different degrees of putrefaction, and even if they could no longer feel her delicate, latex-gloved hands, she was the last person to ever touch their remains before they were released for burial or cremation. As she often did when she felt especially sad or lonely (and she felt both that morning), Molly wondered if the next breathing, living human being that touched her would be a funeral home employee long after her nerve-endings could decode any stimuli, for sometimes it was as if she was meant to spend the rest of her life without the warmth or comfort of a display of affection other than her pet’s.

 

_Who would want to touch you, Molly? Please, do be sensible._

 

Toby meowed loudly. He probably wanted to be fed. She didn’t feel like getting out of bed yet. She felt too heavy, too tired. She wanted, and needed, to sleep for a good couple of hours, the rest of the day even. Why had she agreed to tea with John and Mary on her last day off for the remnant of the week?

 

 _Because you wanted to prove me wrong, Molly,_ the voice in her head that sounded scaringly like Sherlock’s reminded her. _You wanted to prove to me that there are people that may want and enjoy your company. People that may want to be friends with you. That’s why you agreed to joining dear Watson and his girlfriend-of-the-month for tea._

 

Toby meowed again, louder and more insisting this time. She groaned. He wouldn’t stop until he was fed, stubborn little thing he was. Molly sometimes wondered if she shouldn’t have gone ahead and named the cat after the world’s only consulting detective when she’d first had the idea. Toby could be very determined when it came to getting what he wanted, whether it was food, or a treat, or a belly rub. He could be very single-minded when he wished to be left alone, too. But he was also cuddly, and affectionate, and he loved it when she scratched behind his cute little ears. The good things outweighed the bad.

 

_And even if they didn’t, you would still love the damned cat. Just like you still love Sherlock even though he treats you like the piece of trash you are. You do know you are that, right Molly? You belong in the trash bin in his eyes, and everyone else’s. Good thing cats have a weird fondness for things they find in the trash._

 

(In fact, that's exactly what she often thought when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror: _Ugh, look what the cat dragged in._ )

 

No, she did not regret naming him Toby. Toby was a good name. It was cute like the cat himself. He didn't deserve to be named after someone like _him_ , not when the cat was so good to Molly. (Besides, how would have made her look if she’d named her pet after a man she was in love with? She was not on that side of neurotic.)

 

Toby meowed and scratched with his paws at her legs over the blankets. He would not stop until he got what he wanted. And he wanted Molly to get out of bed and feed him. It wasn't what _she_ wanted, but of course the cat didn't care, nor did he understand. He didn't have the ability to rationalize that he had eaten the day before and nothing would happen to him if he just let her rest for a couple of hours and go without eating a little bit longer. He only cared about his needs and was determined to meow and scratch at her until she satisfied them, not unlike Sherlock. The only difference between the pet and the detective was the the former was a domestic animal, a creature without the gift of rational thinking, and he couldn't help himself.

 

_You should get up and feed the damn cat, Molly. It isn't his fault that you are so stupid and so weak you feel you couldn't get out of bed even if your life depended on it. Why should he go hungry? It isn't fair. He isn't like you: he needs and wants food. You can starve yourself all you want but don't drag the cat with you. He's got enough with having you as its stupid owner. Get the fuck up and feed the cat._

 

She'd never know how long it took her, but she managed to get out of bed and made her way to the kitchen without her knees threatening to give out once. She didn’t see white and yellow dots dancing before her eyes, either. She felt less pressure in the back of her head standing than she had when she’d been laying. Maybe it had been a good idea to get out of bed, she thought as she gulped down the antibiotics and some Paracetamol with a glass of iced water.

 

What a wonderful thing, water. She could drink as much as she wanted, drink until she felt full, and gain not a single calorie. But first she had to weigh herself like she did every morning. She had a routine she couldn’t break. It had to be as precise as possible. It was all part of the experiment. It was all _for_ the experiment.

 

By a quarter past two she was done with the weighing and note-taking. Toby was nestled on her lap, purring as she absentmindedly scratched him behind his ears. He was happy and ready for a nap now that he’d been fed. Molly still felt like going back to bed, but she knew that the moment her head hit the pillow she would not be able to get up until the following day when she was due at St. Bart’s for an eight hour shift. She had gotten and remained out of bed once already at Toby’s insistence - she didn’t trust herself to succeed twice.

 

_Go back to bed Molly, and to hell with John and Mary and the fucking tea. Do you really think they will mind? They probably regret inviting you but they don’t want to cancel out of pity. Poor Molly Hooper, no family or friends to spend her days off with, let’s take pity on her and invite her to tea._

 

She shook her head and tried to push the voice away and out of her thoughts. She didn’t know what hurt most, the words and what they meant or how similar that voice sounded to Sherlock’s. He was so deep in her veins, under her skin, that she had his voice buried in her mind and could rarely think without hearing it inside her mess of a head.

 

Or maybe what hurt the most was that she believed those thoughts to be the truth. Sherlock always spoke the truth, didn’t he? He was always right about everything. Why should the Sherlock in her head be any different from the man made of flesh and bone? Of course he was telling the truth.

 

She was tempted to grab her cell phone, write a quick, apologetic text message to John and then hide under the woollen blankets again. But did she really want to do that? Did she really want to spend the rest of her day off alone and in bed wishing the headaches and stomach cramps away?

 

_You know you do. Those headaches and stomach cramps are all part of the experiment. The only source of joy in your life is the experiment. Don’t you want to soak in every little change, every little thing it is putting your body through? Think about how exquisite the numbness is. You could spend the rest of the day lost in it._

 

Molly looked at the digital clock in the top right corner of her mobile screen. She was supposed to meet Mary and John at five o’clock. If she decided to cancel, she had to do it now. If she decided to go, she had to start getting ready now. A sigh of frustration escaped through her thin, small lips. Why couldn’t emotions and decisions be as easily weighed, measured and compared as the organs of the human body? Why were they so difficult to assess correctly, so complicated and full of variables, so impossible to examine with scientific precision and accuracy?

 

It was at times like these, when she felt she was making a mountain out of a molehill, when faced with making choices, that she wished she felt nothing but the numbness and lightheadedness that came with not eating. Not even the emotional relief and pleasure that came with vomiting felt as good as the absence of everything. If she had to vomit, if she had to purge herself, then it meant she still felt. When she didn’t eat at all, Molly eventually reached a state of numbness that placated her mind and her senses. And her heart. It had to be the same for Sherlock, didn’t it? It had to be one of the reasons why he didn’t eat when he worked cases, he had as much as told her that that night at St. Bart’s when the idea for the experiment first tempted her.

 

_Make up your mind, Molly. What is it going to be? Are you going to pretend you have the ability to make friends and go out with Mary and John for tea? Or are you going to stay at home, alone and sad and starving, where no one can see you, where no one can hear you stutter, where you belong?_

 

She knew what her place was, had known all of her life. She knew where she belonged. She didn’t belong among those who had healthy, strong friendships built on mutual support, affection and respect. She had been a lonely child, and contrary to what her parents had hoped, that hadn’t changed when she went to university. As a professional, now she had colleagues and acquaintances and she had occasionally attended social gatherings, congresses and galas, but she had never enjoyed those and had never felt like she belonged. She got together with a few of them from time to time, every couple of months, for a cup of coffee and quick talk about the latest developments in the pathology field, but those didn’t count as friendships. She had had Meena and Caroline for some time, but while the latter had never liked her much and had ceased contact after getting a position with another hospital, the former had stopped seeking her out after she refused to talk about what happened with Moriarty.

 

Yes, Molly Hooper knew what her place was. She knew very well where she belonged. Among the dead, in an ice-cold morgue in the basement of a hospital, touching people for the very last time before they were cremated or buried, and never being touched in return.

 

_You have no one, Molly Hooper._

 

It was right: she had no one.

 

_You are alone, have always been, even moreso since your parents passed away._

 

She was alone, that was true.

 

_You care about everyone and yet no one cares about you._

 

She wasn’t cared for.

 

_You don’t matter to anyone, Molly Hooper._

 

She didn’t matter.

 

_You don’t count, never have and never will._

 

She didn’t count.

 

Her vision got horribly blurred. Tears began falling down her pale face. The headaches she always got after a good crying were all the more reason to cancel on John and Mary and go back to bed. But she found herself not wanting to. She wanted to go, have tea with them, prove herself and the voice inside her head wrong. She could have friends, there were people out there she could form a healthy, emotional bond with and have them care for her as she cared for others. She wasn’t meant to spend the rest of her life sick with loneliness, listening to a voice in her head reminding her of how unworthy and stupid and unlovable she was.

 

Taking controlled, deep breaths and brushing the tears away from her doe-like eyes, Molly made her way to the bathroom and started a shower. The hot, practically scalding water would do her good. Her throat wasn’t as sore as when she’d woken up. Her body didn’t feel so heavy anymore. She could do this. She could take a shower, change into fresh clothes, take the tube and meet John and Mary for tea at five o’clock. She wouldn’t eat, of course not; she would say she had a mild case of tonsillitis and that swallowing hurt, and she would only drink a cuppa or two.

 

She stepped into the shower and under the hot water invaded by a sense of relief and control she didn’t experience since she had last pushed two fingers down her throat. As she washed herself with a soapy bath sponge, Molly began to murmur softly the lyrics to a song by The Smiths that used to get stuck in her head a lot when she was younger. She wasn’t a good singer, she didn’t think she had a good voice, but singing to herself relaxed her. She didn’t stutter when she sung.

 

“ _End of the pier, end of the bay, you tug my arm, and say: ‘give in to lust, give up to lust, oh heaven knows we'll soon be dust…’_ ”

 

* * *

 

 _The Violets_ was a very beautiful, classic-style tea house that had had its grand opening the year before. John had mentioned in his text messages that Mary knew the owners. Molly had never been there or heard about it, but then she didn’t dine out much. When she arrived promptly at five o’clock, Mary and John were already there. They had set them with a table in a quiet corner away from the busier, bigger ones that sat groups of eight to ten. The small party of three would be undisturbed by the chatter and clinking of cutlery from the other diners.

 

"Molly, dear! We're so glad you could make it!”

 

Mary greeted her with a kiss on each cheek that Molly returned awkwardly. John simply nodded his head politely as he said ‘Allow me’ and pulled a chair out for Molly to sit on. She didn’t have time to thank him properly, for Mary wasn’t back in her chair that she was speaking again, her soft voice carrying with an elegance and grace that Molly could have never mastered neither speaking nor doing any other thing that wasn’t slicing up cadavers and sewing them back closed.

 

“We went ahead and ordered the full tea service, I hope you don't mind.” She then added: “Our treat, of course. They have the most delicious pound lemon cake you'll ever have! Do you like pound lemon cake?” Molly was about to answer that even though she liked lemon pound cake (and she did) she could not have anything but a cuppa because she had tonsillitis and her throat hurt, but Mary went on talking and changed the subject before Molly could even open her mouth: “Oh and look at your jumper! I was just eyeing one in that colour at Selfridges the other day!"

 

Molly looked down at herself self-consciously. She was wearing a mustard, woollen jumper that was two sizes too big for her but very cozy and comfortable. It was not new or fashionable at all (in fact she had got it at a charity drive a couple of years ago). The last time she had worn it to work was a week after meeting Sherlock; he had called it a 'monstrosity’ and asked her if her position payed so bad that she had to resource to shopping for hand-me-downs. She only wore it on her days off now.

 

“Thank you,” she smiled and both of them smiled, too. Before awkward silence settled in, a waitress went over with their tea service and a three-story tray full of savoury snacks, small pastries, pound cake, and scones with jam.

 

It was more food than Molly had seen in a long time, and she would have to make her excuse sound credible so they wouldn't push her to eat anything. She was starting to regret not cancelling on them. The mere sight of all the food and the smell were making her feel nauseated. She was nervous and uncomfortable because she didn't know what subjects of conversation they could possibly have; she didn't know Mary, and she couldn't say she knew John any better, and she was supposed to make small talk while they ate all of those sandwiches and pastries and considered her stupid for going out to tea when she supposedly have tonsillitis.

 

_Stop sitting there with your mouth shut embarrassing yourself, you good-for-nothing, ugly thing. Say something._

 

“Mary, John t-tells m-me you know the owners?”

 

“Oh, yes! Delightful couple! They are in their late fifties and moved all the way from Argentina some years ago. Her daughter married a Londoner and they didn't want to be away from their grandchildren when they came. I believe they owned a tea house when they lived there, too.”

 

“That's very nice,” Molly said. “And how do you know them?”

 

_Oh you stupid girl, what is this? An interrogation? Can you not say something interesting without asking idiotic questions? Obviously you can't. No wonder you spend all day alone with cadavers in a morgue._

 

However, Mary seemed delighted with her question.

 

“Their daughter was a brilliant student of mine two courses ago. I asked her to co-write a research paper with me after she got her license.”

 

“Are you a teacher?”

 

_Of course she is a teacher, she just implied it. Stop asking such stupid questions, you stupid, useless thing._

 

Mary took a sip of her tea and buttered a scone while John tried one of the pastries. If either of them noticed Molly was not touching anything but her cup of tea, none of them made a comment about it.

 

“I am a professor at King’s College. I teach Evidence-Based Mental Health Care and Engagement and Recovery in their Mental Health Nursing programme.”

 

They talked for a bit about Mary’s job as a college professor. Mary spoke naturally and beautifully about the things she was passionate about, and her confident tone was one Molly had always envied when encountered with someone who had it. She had a way with words, they came easy to her and flowed freely from her mouth. She looked so sure of herself and of what she was saying. So Molly just listened, asking a question here and there, as did John (although he was definitely more interested in the scones and pastries than in information about Mary he already knew.)  

 

“And how d-did you t-two meet?” Molly asked when she was on her second cuppa. The tea was very good and her throat hurt even less than it had early that day. Neither John nor Mary seemed to care that Molly wasn’t touching any of the food.

 

“I was a guest speaker in one of Mary’s seminars in the summer. I spoke about PTSD from the point of view of a doctor and former soldier.”

 

“A friend of mine knew someone that was in the same regiment as John. He agreed to be a guest speaker but he had a last-minute emergency. He asked John to fill in for him. I’m so glad he did - I understand the other man was married and not as handsome,” Mary laughed.

 

“We chatted for a bit after the Q&A’s and I asked for her number.”

 

“I asked for your number,” Mary corrected him as she helped herself to another pastry. How could she be so beautiful and thin and still eat so much? How could she be a successful, professional woman, a college professor nonetheless, if she gave her organism so much work processing all those unnecessary, poisonous calories?

 

“You asked if _I_ wanted _your_ number and I said yes,”

 

“I see no difference, John. It was I who made sure you had my contact information in case you wished to ask me out for dinner. He didn't, though,” Mary added, looking at Molly and smiling conspiratorially. “I did. I wasn't sure he would work up the courage to text me first, so three days later I gave in and texted him. I win, John.”

 

“Whatever you say, dear.”

They laughed, and Molly laughed, too. Their story was so simple. So normal and ordinary. It was what she had always craved and wanted more than anything in the world but had never had. The intimacy of knowing someone so much and so well, so in depth, that words are not needed to understand what is going on through the other person’s mind. The smiles, and the laughter, and the telling friends how you met, and the teasing each other about who chased who. John looked at Mary with a spark in his eyes that was nothing short of love and adoration, and she seemed as entranced with him. It wasn’t obscenely obvious, no. It was the kind of subtleness that Molly had read about in books. It was the kind of look that warmed your soul and made your heart feel cherished even in the most ordinary moments, like when you were having afternoon tea with an acquaintance.

 

She had never had anyone look at her like that.

 

She had never had anyone want her to look at them like that.

 

Mary and John were still talking, but she was not really listening anymore. She nodded her head, smiled politely, and made a small noise here and there to acknowledge what they were saying (even though she had no idea what they were saying), but her mind was somewhere else.

 

Was she so ugly, so unlovable, to not have been looked like that by anyone in thirty one years? Was she so undeserving of being cared for? Why had she never experienced something like what John and Mary seemed to have? Why did it frighten her so much that she never would? Why would she expect to find it now if she hadn’t before? She was nothing. She was a no one. Yes, she had a medical degree and she was the youngest senior pathologist St. Bartholomew’s Hospital had ever hired. That was all she had: a thriving career among the dead. Touching people’s cold flesh for the last time and never being touched…

 

_Why would anyone want to touch you, you stupid, ugly thing? You are not beautiful. You are intelligent, yes, above average, but your sense of humor and interests are so morbid! You slice up cadavers and weigh and measure human organs for a living, and enjoy it. You make jokes that no one laughs at but you.You stutter. Your lips are thin, your breasts are small. Your face is ugly. You are ugly. You are not like Mary. Look at Mary, look at her! How could John, or any men, not fall for a woman so charming, so elegant, so graceful? You, on the other hand, you are the opposite to that. Who could want you? How can you be so stupid to think anyone would look at you with nothing but pity?_

 

She had made a mistake in accepting their invitation to tea. She should not have left her flat, where she could have stayed in bed buried under her blankets, away from the rest of the world, unseen by all those beautiful, socially functional people that were loved and cared for. She should have never thought she could attempt to make friends and have a normal social life like the rest of them, that she could fit. If she hadn’t before, what made her think she would now? If anything, this was more proof of what she had always known: she would always be lonely, save for a cat and her beloved experiment, the only thing that made her feel important and satisfied and in control. She would never fit in with the rest of them. She would never belong. She wasn’t like them, she didn’t deserve to have what they had. She simply couldn’t. She didn’t have it in her.

 

_You will die alone, unloved, unwanted. The next breathing, living person that will touch you in any way will be a mortician. No one will care enough to pay for a wake or a burial, you may as well donate your stupid body to science and do something worthwhile for once in your life, you stupid, ugly thing._

 

She wanted to be sick. She didn’t feel like vomitting, yet, but she _wanted_ to want to vomit. She craved it. She needed it. She needed the pleasure, the relief, the release. All of these toxic, awful thoughts and feelings were pushing up her throat, desperate to get out of her body. She knew it couldn’t be good to do it now, not with the state her throat was in, but she didn’t care about her stupid sore throat or what she did to it if she vomited now. It would be just this once, this one time, and then she’d be back to repressing herself until it healed.

 

The wheels in her head started turning fast. She had only drank cold water and tea today, and she had drank diet Coke and eaten carrots the previous day. If she pushed her fingers down her throat now (she wasn’t carrying a tongue depressor with her) she would likely vomit stomach acids. The acids would burn and damage the skin in the walls of her throat more than if she vomited half-digested food.

 

She’d have to eat.

 

She’d eat the pastries, and the scones, and the biscuits, and the sandwiches, wash it all down with loads of tea, and then she would excuse herself and go to the loo and purge herself. It would be all out of her body before it had had time to digest anything fully. Swallowing solid food would hurt, but it couldn’t hurt more than swallowing down the hot tea. Besides, she didn’t care about the pain, not at all. She just wanted the sheer pleasure of vomiting, and she knew the relief she’d feel afterwards would be worth the pain and discomfort.

 

So Molly poured herself another cuppa, helped herself to a little bit of everything and began to eat whilst John and Mary still talked about the weather, or politics, or whatever it was they were talking about.

She didn’t remember the last time she had eaten like this. Somehow it was different than gulping down chocolate bar after chocolate bar to then go vomit it all, not giving herself time to taste them because what she wanted was to get something down to then purge it out of her. This was even different than how it had been before the experiment. The food tasted sweeter, she was more aware of its texture and the hurt in her throat every time she swallowed was not unpleasant at all. It was almost welcome.

 

_You know you deserve it, Molly. You deserve the hurt, the pain. That’s why you enjoy it. It’s the only thing you deserve. The only thing you’ve always deserved. So you may as well enjoy it, right? Yes, since it is the only thing you deserve you may as well enjoy the pain, embrace it._

 

She winced when a piece of tart crust scratched the back of her throat. Mary noticed it.

 

“Dear, are you alright?” she asked.

 

“Yes, I am fine,” Molly said, taking a sip out of her cup of tea. “I think I may be coming down with a case of tonsillitis, so my throat is a little bit sore. I wasn’t going to eat anything, but it all looks so delicious I simply cannot help myself,” she lied.

 

She ate two pastries, and a strawberry tart, and three sandwiches, and a couple of scones. She managed not to look frantic, or feverishly needy, or maniacal. She just ate, knowing all the while the imminent fate of the food she was taking into her mouth. She didn’t make much small talk, but she was a good listener, and Mary loved talking. She was such a bright, interesting woman, no wonder John was in awe of her.

 

_Any man would be in awe of her. She is the exact opposite of you, and no one would be in awe of you._

 

She wanted to be sick. She needed to be sick.

 

She excused herself and said she had to use the loo.

 

“She is going to make herself sick,” Mary said to John when they were left alone in their table, Molly out of earshot and out of sight.

 

“I thought an anorexic person had an aversion to food and did not eat. Do you think she could be bulimic, too?”

 

“It is possible,” Mary said. “Both eating disorders go hand in hand most of the time, and the patients go from one to the other depending on the emotional place they find themselves in.”

 

“She didn’t touch the food until well into her third cuppa. I didn’t know if we were supposed to say something or not. It is not like we could lead with ‘oh Molly, we’ve noticed you are not eating, is it because you have an eating disorder?’”

 

“She had a lie rehearsed. The tonsillitis,” Mary said. “They usually come up with different excuses to justify why they don’t eat. Asking her about it wouldn’t have helped, it would have only made her more nervous, more self-conscious. Besides, like you said, it is not like we could have led with that. But did you see how she winced when I asked her if she was all right?” John nodded. “Her throat must really hurt. Bulimic patients get sore throats very often because the stomach acids burn the tissue.”

 

Mary got up.

 

“Where are you going?” John asked.

 

“To the loo,” she said matter-of-factly.

 

“Do you think that walking in on her vomiting is a good idea?”

 

Mary sat back down and looked at John with a serious expression on her face.

 

“That young girl is locked in a bathroom stall, feeling alone, and sad, and stressed. She is probably pushing two fingers down her throat in the hopes of making herself sick, even though she knows it will hurt terribly with the state her throat must be in after so much vomiting. I can’t think of a reason not to walk in on her, not when I am sure I can stop her from doing it.”

 

“Stop her? How?”

 

“Three women from that table over there got up and headed for the loo at the same time Molly did. She is not going to make herself sick while there are other people there,” Mary explained to John in a tone that reminded him too much of Sherlock’s.

 

The resemblances he found between the two of them with each passing day were uncanny. The odds of him meeting two people so alike it was scary and becoming flatmate and best friend to one and lover to another had to be very, very slim. And yet there he was.

 

“She will wait until the women finish. They have not returned to their table yet. I still have a chance to prevent Molly from hurting herself. Will she do it later at home?” Mary anticipated John’s question “She probably will. But at least she will not do it now, she will not do it here, and she will know I have noticed something was wrong. She will know someone cares.”

 

John nodded her head and smiled sadly at the beautiful, short-haired blonde woman sitting next to him. He could see the care, the worry, the compassion in her eyes. She had been born to care for others, to make them feel protected and safe, to defend those in need, to speak for those who did not have the power to raise their voices and make themselves heard. She wanted to help them all be seen and heard. It was all written there on her lovely face. Was it too soon to be thinking about a future with that woman, not in the abstract but with concrete ideas that involved him moving out of Baker Street and into a place they could both call their own?

 

 _Take it down a notch, Watson,_ said a voice inside his head that sounded a lot like Sherlock’s.

 

“I will be right back,” Mary said, and then she left John alone at their table.

 

When she got to the loo, the three women she’d seen getting up almost at the same time as Molly were returning to their table. She had not noticed anyone else getting up and going there, so it meant Molly was alone. She took a deep breath and opened the door.

 

The young pathologist was inside one of the stalls. Mary could hear her coughing awkwardly. She debated for a second if she should make some noise to make the presence of another person known, or call out for Molly instead.

 

She chose the latter.

 

“Molly, dear, is that you? Are you alright?”

 

Mary heard her muffled voice coming out from inside the stall.

 

“Yes, I’ll be right out,”

 

Two more minutes passed. Mary leaned back against the wall and waited for Molly. She didn’t hear any more coughing or any other weird noises, so she supposed the younger woman had desisted from her initial plan. She probably hated her right now, but Mary did not care. She had never cared what people thought of her, and she knew her reasons to be doing this were valid. If Molly wished to be mad at her for interrupting her, Mary did not have a problem with that.

 

When Molly came out, she had red, swollen eyes and her face was even paler than before. She had either been crying or trying not to cry. She was shaking a little, and when she spoke to Mary she could not control her stuttering.

 

“I’m s-s-sorry t-t-o have k-kept you waiting,” she said. “I just f-felt a l-l-little bit ill, that’s a-all. T-tonsillitis,” she said matter-of-factly. “M-my throat hurts a-and I needed to c-c-coff d-desperately. Didn’t s-seem p-polite to d-do it at the t-table,”

 

“Oh, dear, do not be sorry at all,” Mary said smiling at her reassuringly. “I just came here to use the loo myself, and when I heard coughing I supposed it was you and thought you may need something.”

 

“N-no, n-no,” Molly assured her. She was visibly uncomfortable and doing her best not to look too upset.

 

“Well, I’ll be quick and then we can wash our hands and go back to our table. I feel like having another cuppa, don’t you?”

 

Molly nodded her head yes absentmindedly and stayed there waiting while Mary went inside one of the stalls.

 

Once alone in there, she took her mobile phone out of the pocket of her black designer trousers. She had slipped it out of her purse and inside the pocket whilst her and John had been talking about Molly before she headed for the loo. He had not noticed. He had no idea about her pickpocket abilities, or any of her most interesting, important abilities whatsoever.

 

She searched for a telephone number she knew too well, the one listed as a hairdresser that did not even exist, and quickly typed a text: _It is as bad as I told you. Unaware of whether it can be used against Holmes or not. Awaiting instructions._

  
Less than a minute after she got a reply: _Do nothing. She doesn't concern you. Your mission is Watson._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank my friend Rocío for proofreading this chapter. I was nervous about it, but her insight and comments helped a lot in the editing process. 
> 
> I would also like to apologize for any mistakes I may have made in describing a classic, proper English tea house. The one in my story was inspired by a tea house in Buenos Aires I frequently go to with my grandmother. If you would like to visit its web page and see how it is, this is the link: http://www.lasvioletas.com/lahoradelte.html
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and for all your beautiful, wonderful comments.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder, self-harm, past drug use and explicit sexual content.

The day he deduced what was wrong with Molly Hooper he played the violin until his fingers bled. He didn’t stop until the fingerboard was drenched in blood. The cuts in his fingers opened up, but he didn’t care. If he was supposed to be incapable of caring for someone he knew who was forcing starvation on herself, then why did he have to care for his (literally) bloody fingers? Oh, right: because he was a self-diagnosed fucking high-functioning sociopath that paid no attention to others unless he could take advantage of them, thus he only cared about himself and what was in his best interests. Well, that night it was not in his best interests to stop the bleeding, so he played on. He filled 221B Baker Street with music in hopes to drown the tortuous hassle in his mind.

 

Sherlock Holmes had played until his fingers bled in four different occasions before, all of them aligned with his coming and going from rehabilitation facilities. Both extremes -finding himself in the deepest pits of hell where cravings lay or fighting the boredom and emptiness associated with sobriety- drove him into hiding like a mad fugitive. When he didn't have his work he turned to music. It didn't question him or judge him, and he always was in total control. He could have played the notes and heard the music in his head sans the instrument, and yet he needed to hold it in his hands and feel its weight and keep going until his fingers trembled and hurt. And sometimes he needed to cut himself open. And sometimes he needed to make himself bleed.

 

He had stopped at deep cuts because of Molly Hooper twice in the past. Once after he saw the bags and dark shadows under her eyes following up Moriarty's big reveal. The second time was the day he had to pretend not to give a damn she'd been mugged and assaulted. But he had put the violin back in its case before the cuts opened. He had done so consciously, telling himself _This far and no further._ If he bled for Molly Hooper then he would be putting her on equal ground with the drugs. He'd be giving her the same leverage, the same power. Only the consequences could be worse. The drugs were inanimate, and they only served their purpose when he got the needle ready and shot up. Molly Hooper was a breathing, human being with the illusion of free will, therefore unpredictable to some degree even if it was usually easy to deduce where her behaviour would take her most of the time. That was precisely the last thing he wanted: to hand over control, to bend the knee and abandon himself at the mercy of a woman, however exquisitely alluring for whatever reason and in spite of her monstrosity of a wardrobe or her stuttering in social situations. There was something about her that called to him the same way cocaine and heroin did: she was a vessel for temptation, a walking embodiment for his darkest, most primal, most basic unsatisfied desires. She offered the promise of both stimuli and peace of mind, and in that she was not too different from his addictions. And even if he didn't want to, he often fantasized with consuming her, thus the comparison was inevitable.

 

He imagined the excitement. The throbbing, almost pleasurable pain that came with the craving. The delicious wanting, the waiting. Her clothes coming off piece by piece per his order, until she stands there, completely bare and all soft, creamy, edible warn flesh exposed to his gaze. He imagined her breasts, as petite as the rest of her, the right size for his hands to cover, the pebbled nipples hardened with anticipation. He would be in control, of course; it's the privacy and protection of his Mind Palace after all. And yet he found himself unable to make the fantasy stay always the same, for one day it began changing and morphing into something different, much more erotic and salacious that it'd been at first.

 

He never gave oral pleasure to any of the women he had had sex with. He had had them all take his half hard cock into their mouths and suck him off, but he’d never came close to pleasing them in that way. He didn't see the point in it. Pleasing them was not part of his experimenting, and he did not care about it. He was selfish, a sociopath, and he had been only after whatever pleasure the mechanical, biological act of coupling could give _him_. But his prick got hard to the point of pain at the thought of Molly Hooper straddling his face, leaning back on her heels to hold her weight off of him, and running her fingers through his hair whilst he looked up at her with his mouth full of her clitoris. She would be facing him and towards the headboard of the bed (his, hers, a motel’s - he didn’t care what the scenario for his fantasies was) to grab onto it and use it as leverage. He wanted to eat her out, fuck her with his tongue until she came undone. He’d lick her slowly and in circles, and then all the way up and down her slit, rubbing his nose in her wet, warm cunt. He got harder than steel just thinking about tasting every single component of her arousal as he devoured her. He’d savour her, tease her with his lips, tongue and teeth until he had her grinding on his face and moaning loudly.

 

But he didn’t want her to be able to fully express how he made her feel; laying there looking up at her- he’d already be in a vulnerable position. He wouldn’t relinquish all the control. He’d silence her little noises of pleasure trusting his thumb into her beautiful mouth. He got hard fantasizing about that, too: the texture of her soft, pale pink lips under the rough, calloused skin of his thumb after years of playing the violin and experimenting with all sorts of chemicals. And then he imagined the sweet warmth and moisture of her mouth when she sucked him off like she would his cock.

 

The image in his mind was exquisitely explicit and detailed for someone that had never performed cunnilingus on a woman before.

 

If only thinking about it and imagining how it would be like to fuck her that way had him coming all over his thighs and stomach, he knew that to actually experience it in the flesh would have in his mind and body the same effect as the drugs.

 

It was dangerous.

 

It could end him.

 

Fantasies nearly killed him with their frequency and intensity, and he could not help having those every morning (and most nights, too). He could not succumb to these basic desires and turn fantasy into reality, for it would be like burying a needle in his arm again, only that the substance of choice this time did not come in a bag of powder or a syringe. She had a mind, and a heart, and he had no control over them.

 

He had a better chance of survival if he jumped off the roof in St. Bart's than if he gave in and fucked her.

 

The imaginary taste and smell of her was already intoxicating. He was becoming an addict to getting off to the textures and sounds of the Molly Hooper in his Mind Palace. He wanted, craved the moments he spent alone in his room or in the bathroom, cock in hand and compulsively stroking his length. Cases were a wonderful distraction, as long as they didn't lead him to St. Bart's, straight into the wolf's mouth. The sweet, warm, wet wolf's mouth that he couldn't stop imagining his cock in.

 

If the craving was vivisecting him, the drug itself would take no time in doing him in, leaving a disaster in its wake.That was why he had to push her away. He had to pretend he didn't care, act as if she didn't count, as if she didn't matter. As if her mere existence was not consuming him, eating away at him deliciously to the point of it being similar to torture. He couldn't pay the price of wanting. He couldn't afford the luxury of caring.

 

The day she was mugged on her way to work he almost lost it. He didn't let it show, he succeeded in faking apathy. He'd kept his eyes glued to the screen of his mobile phone and pretended to text. He wanted nothing but the scandal in his mind and heart to go unnoticed by both his flatmate and the physically, emotionally hurt pathologist. He'd made a couple of deductions in the few seconds he allowed herself to observe her (not _look_ at her, he never let himself _truly_ look at her). And then he'd gone in for the kill. He'd attacked her brutally. He spoke to her and about her with a cruelty no one would believe Molly Hooper deserving of. But oh, he thought differently. She did deserve it, if only for daring to alter his hard-earned (though still not completely stable) equilibrium. She walked into his Mind Palace and made a nest there and refused to leave. She was taking up so much space she may as well be trying to be crowned its bloody queen. He had a right to defend his domain. If she wanted the throne then she'd have to fucking straddle him while he was still sitting on it, for he was not getting up and kneeling down before her.

 

The problem was he fantasised with some of those things. He fantasised with her straddling his face, and his lap, and then empaling herself on his cock. But it was not just that. He knew she meant more than temptation, she was more than a trigger for a basic, biological desire that he repressed enough not to actually fuck her but was controlled by to the point he masturbated to images of her. When he learned how close to her Moriarty had gotten he'd been so mad he thought he was in danger of relapsing. It had been a dangerous night. It had been a dangerous couple of days.

 

He knew nothing had happened between them (and why the bloody hell should he care whether it did or didn't? It didn't, though. He knew it.) The consulting criminal had never had any real interest in her, and she was too shy to initiate physical intimacy with someone after knowing them for so little time. He wondered if Moriarty had only gone out with her on those three pathetic dates just to upset Sherlock because he had _seen_ or _understood_ what she meant to him. Had his character study of the detective allowed him to deduce that Molly Hooper was a pressure point for him? Had Moriarty realized the young, mousy girl with the stuttering disorder called to him like a brick of cocaine? Sherlock Holmes had wondered that whilst he played the violin until his fingers were full of painful blisters. He'd wondered if Moriarty had sent him a message by getting close to her: _I can see inside your heart, and I know its darkest desire. I know you see her. I know she counts. I know she matters. I know you want her. I'll take her away from you and destroy her, and then you'll have no temptation left and you'll be able to focus on our game._ He wondered if he knew, and that was a question whose answer he feared. Because if it was 'yes,’ then it meant his enemy knew the weakness Sherlock had tried so hard to conceal from the rest of the world.

 

The problem was Molly Hooper affected more than his prick. She meant more to him than erections and masturbating almost every night and every morning. She was more than wet dreams and impossibly stickier thighs when he came in his sleep and woke up with his pants and pajamas stained with seminal fluids. She affected his mind, and the heart that as a self-diagnosed sociopath he claimed he did not have. She made him feel, and want, and crave, and care, and all things that proved to him that despite his privileged intellect, despite his belief that the human body was nothing but transportation for the mind, he was still a man that could be easily broken down by drugs, be them heroin and cocaine or a brown eyed woman whose cunt he wanted to bury his face in like he still wanted to score. (Or perhaps he wanted her more, for he thought about fucking her more than he ever did about scoring.)

 

The day she found out about Moriarty, the day she was mugged - he'd wanted to touch her, protect her, kiss every inch of her body, warm her skin with his, hide her away from the world and anything that may put her in harm's way. It wasn't about sex. It was something primal that fed off instinct, but it ran much more deeper than lust. It was confusing and scary, and on those occasions he played the violin until his fingers almost bled, but he stopped in time. He didn't let it get that far. He stopped before it happened, before that line was crossed, and damned him, bloody damned him if that didn't prove he still had some control over the fucking mess Molly Hooper was making of him by simply existing.

 

But the day he deduced what was wrong with her - that day was different. He lost control, he crossed the line, and he didn't put the bow down until the fingerboard was drenched with the sticky, warm blood that ran through his veins, pumped by a muscle he swore did not serve any other purpose but an anatomical one, and let those idiots that believed an organ had anything to do with their so called emotions keep swallowing up the lies social constructs fed them.

 

He was masturbating when he pieced it together. It was the middle of the night and he'd gotten up hard as a rock, like it so often happened when he had no cases, no intellectual stimuli. He was in the bathroom trying to get off when he realized the Molly Hooper in his Mind Palace was changed. She looked more fragile. She was thinner. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her naked body looked as if she could break if he touched her. Worst of all she looked sad, and lost, and terribly depressed. And as he felt his erection go limp in his hands he understood two things: the Molly Hooper in his Mind Palace was an exact replica of the real one, the one he refused to pay attention to for long periods when in her presence. And he also understood that right then he did not want to fuck her, he did not want her to ride his face whilst his mouth was full of her clitoris. He wanted to hold her, and protect her, and heal her.

 

But he couldn't. Those were all things he could not do. And so he walked out of his Mind Palace and left her there alone, did up his pants and pajamas and went to find some comfort in his violin. Music would be his refuge, his sanctuary, like so many times before. He'd hide there, where he couldn't be touched, where he couldn't be trapped by weaknesses. If music had once helped him overcome his first addiction, then there was no reason why it would not help him win this war.

 

And so he played on. He did not stop when John went down and told him to please let him sleep because he had things to do the following day (tea with that woman he'd been seeing, Mary, and a friend - had to be Mary's, of course, he knew all of John's friends and it was not any of them. John thought Sherlock did not pay attention when he was on the phone with her, but he did.) He didn't stop hours later when he felt the first blisters start to form. He didn't stop when he felt each and every cut. He did not stop when John got up, fixed himself some breakfast and then left complaining under his breath about the quality of his night's rest. He did not stop when the cuts opened. He did not stop when they began bleeding.

 

He did not stop because he did not know how. And so he played on, because he feared that if he put down the instrument and let 221B Baker Street be filled with silence then the scandal in his mind would break him into pieces. And he'd have to resort to heroin to shut it off and make it quiet again. So he replaced the noise in his head with music, and he played on until while he bled.

 

How had he not seen it before? He always missed something. His brain had subconsciously registered the changes, for the Molly in the Mind Palace had changed as well. He had not noticed it until that night, but she had been changing. He could understand it under this new light: she had gotten thinner, and the circles under her eyes had become darker and bigger, and she'd gotten sadder. And now the changes were too obvious he had finally noticed them and put two and two together.

 

All the signs were there, all the symptoms were there. They had been there all along. They fit perfectly now. All those little things about her he had tried to ignore so hard had been registered by his mind and were now in front of him, and they made sense. Everything made sense, every little detail. Every word, every look, every action. Every-fucking-thing.

 

Molly Hooper was anorexic.

 

And apparently he'd end up bleeding himself to death for her, because he had no fucking clue as of what to do about it. So he played on.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

She did not know very much about the real Mary Morstan, only that she’d died from meningitis at the age of two. Most of the fake identities she’d taken on over the years had belonged to dead children. There was a death certificate with her _own_ birth name on it, and both the police and medical report stated that little Rosamund, five years old, had not survived a domestic incident that took place at her home the night before Christmas. Such a domestic incident had never happened, of course. But make belief was so easy when you had friends in high places. A person’s legal status -or any status whatsoever- could be changed in the blink of an eye if they knew who to ask. That was how they did it every time she had to become someone else. She had been six different people since she joined them, and sometimes she wondered if the life she had known as Rosamund had ever been any more real than the lives she'd pretended to lead after.

 

She was no one. She was everyone. One year she had dark hair and worked in a milk farm, the next one she had to learn to do a  Hungarian accent and had a job as a tattoo artist in New York City. Before becoming Mary she had been Josie Mardle, a fifty-one-year old saleswoman at Selfridges in Oxford street. That had taken some extra effort. She wore a brunette wig every day -a very good one made with real human hair- and lots of makeup to appear almost twenty years older. It had been fun. Different. She had enjoyed her post at Selfridges. It had felt natural. She liked talking to people and she was good at sales - after all, she spent most of the time selling herself to the rest of the world as someone she was not.

 

Now she was Mary Morstan, a nurse specialized in mental health and a college professor. She hadn’t become who she was supposed to be in a fortnight, just like she hadn’t learned how to milk a cow or make tattoos for the Hungarian-American mob in one week. It took time. She had to study each character and their background, she had to learn about thirty, forty, fifty years of a life thoroughly lived as if it had been her own and not something specifically made up to serve a particular purpose for the organization. She could have been a good, dedicated actress, she supposed, if she hadn’t been cast into the most powerful spider’s web.

 

Life as Rosamund could have been something like this if she hadn't signed a deal with the devil. Extraordinary circumstances had forced her hand. She'd been young back then, and alone, and scared. And of course the devil had not presented himself in the shape of a creature with two horns adorning his head. He'd been nice, charming even, and what he'd had to offer had been better than what she'd had for such a long time. It’d been nicer than whatever else she’d had up until that point, or at least since she could remember. She supposed she’d been happy those first years with her birth family, but most of those memories were blurry, and the ones who weren’t...Well, she’d learned it was better not to dwell on them. It didn’t do her any good. It only complicated things, and things were already complicated without adding the weight of emotions.

 

She’d kept a picture with her for some time, one of her and her older brother, Siggy, playing in the backyard of the house, the seven-year-old boy wearing a cap and top hat and waving some sort of a homemade wand while she posed as the magician’s assistant. (To think that she would become that in the future, a magician’s assistant, but in a much more perverse, twisted way, the world of the wicked and evil their big stage.) The picture had been taken when she was four, probably by one of their parents. She was smiling so brightly in it, with her eyes as big as saucers and those cute little dimples and chubby cheeks like a cherub, not a foretelling sign that indicated that over a year later she would lose them all.   

 

 _Don’t wonder too much what it would have been, or you’ll do your own head in, darling_ , were words she told herself often. But sometimes she just couldn’t help it, and that night was one of those times. Yes, she knew, life as Rosamund could have been something like this, something like Mary’s. She was actually a nurse, she had been trained professionally in that, and she enjoyed being a professor. She liked the lectures, and the students, and grading papers. It was all so normal, all so not the real her. But it wasn’t like she knew what the real her was like, either.

 

Sometimes she didn’t know what to refer to herself as, for her identities were ever changing and she got so deep in character every time she forgot completely about the skin she had inhabited before, whomever it belonged to. It was beginning to get scary, thinking that she would miss inhabiting this skin after this was all over.

 

The woman pretending to be Mary Morstan looked at the man that slept peacefully next to her. He was snoring softly, nose scrunched up a little, one arm under his pillow and the other holding her close by the waist. He had no idea whatsoever that the person he was sharing a bed with was some sort of impostor, to put it mildly. He’d been so open with his heart since the beginning, so willing and ready to trust her. It’d been so easy to win him over, perhaps because he’d been free-falling when they met, and he was desperate for someone to break the fall. And so she had. He didn’t hit the ground but fell deeper instead. She made him fall in love with her.

 

And she fell in love with him.

 

Mary Morstan (it was less complicated if she referred to herself as whomever she was pretending to be at the time - it helped her stay in character) fell in love with Dr. John Watson against her better judgement.

 

She’d had taken lovers many times when on assignments, but she’d never felt anything for them, and they’d all been forgotten the minute she was given a new identity and a new mission. None of them had been good men, though. None of them had been kind like John was. And as she watched him sleep, as she observed the rise and fall of his naked chest, she felt sick with remorse because she knew that sooner rather than later it would all be over, and she’d have to break his heart before disappearing to God knew where to start working on her next performance, her next role.

 

 _Watson is a mission_ , she reminded herself. _You get to Watson, you get to Holmes, as simple as that. You know the rules: one misstep and the wolf eats you up and spits you out._

 

How careless of her to fall for him! To care about him! What good could come from it? If anything she was endangering him and herself more than it was necessary, and they were both pretty up to their necks (even if John had not the slightest idea about that.) She couldn’t have weaknesses, not when her job consisted of spotting and exploiting others’. And yet she let John become one a few months into the assignment. Sentiment, such a dangerous thing. She’d spent most of her existence avoiding it, shielding herself from it, only to find out that she was not totally immune to it in the arms of a pawn in a complicated game of chess, one involving the world’s only consulting detective no less.

 

And then there was that young girl, the pathologist. Molly Hooper. She was never supposed to be part of the plan. She was never in the picture. But coincidence had brought her right along and now Mary could not stop thinking about her, all bones and no flesh, starving herself for whatever reason, fear and loneliness and desperation trying to reach out from the inside to the real world showing in her vacant doe-like eyes.

 

She had thought that maybe if she played her cards right, she could convince them it’d be intelligent to approach her, new territory to explore. The girl worked with Sherlock Holmes as well, after all, didn’t she? Word out was that she was _his_ pathologist, that was how he referred to her, and they knew for a fact that he refused to take cases from New Scotland Yard if she was not the one doing the post mortems. She could be useful- maybe not as much as John, of course. But Mary believed that Molly could be part of the game, she had told them. A man like Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t go about calling anyone anything of _his,_  he didn’t even call John his friend most of the time and favoured the term ‘flatmate’ over the former. And yet he openly called Molly _his pathologist_ around others - they’d known that even before Moriarty chose to befriend her, it was common knowledge at St. Bart’s that he thought she was his property, some other tool or lab equipment he could use whenever and however he pleased _._ Apparently those she answered to thought the same, for they had told her Molly was not interesting and that she was not to waste any resources on her.

 

Mary still thought differently, but then again she had always had something for language and semiotics. She payed attention to little words and how people made them go together, and she did think it was important that Sherlock called Molly Hooper _his_ , even if for the rest this was just another way he showed how his behaviour was aligned with him thinking he owned the hospital, and everything (and everyone) in it that suited his needs.

 

But no, this isn’t important at all, they had told her. Molly Hooper did not matter. Molly Hooper did not count.

 

_Your mission is Watson._

 

Those words played constantly in her head lately, over and over again like some sort of broken record. He was a mission, nothing else. Hers. And Molly should not interest her, she should not waste any more time thinking of her. The message from her superiors had been clear: mind Watson and nothing else, no one else. Molly was nothing to them, she meant nothing to the game, she counted less than a pawn. And yet since they had met with her for tea a week before Mary Morstan could not shake off of her head the idea that there was more to Molly Hooper than what met the eye, and that they were making a mistake in thinking she did not matter.

 

In her experience she knew that there were many reasons why a person developed an eating disorder like Molly’s, and low self-esteem was one of them. She thought she didn’t matter, and she was made to believe that as well, maybe had been made to believe that all through her life. It was wrong, Mary wanted to tell her. She counted. She mattered. She could ask for help. She could escape the ghosts that tormented her, the voices in her head telling her to push her fingers down her throat after every meal or go days and days without eating a spoonful.

 

She knew she could help her, or at least make her see she needed professional help. That whatever it was tormenting her could and would pass, but that she needed to work on making it go away instead of letting it feed off her.

 

Mary had played a little off the script in convincing John to become firmer friends with her and invite her to tea, although she could defend her idea by saying it was expected of her to be interested in enjoying social outings with John’s inner circle, and that it wasn’t her fault if he liked Molly and wanted that friendship to extend to Mary. She wondered how much further she could go like that, making it look as if John was the one who was interested in Molly and Mary becoming friends and spending time together.

 

Maybe she could do one good thing before she had to disappear from John Watson’s life and morph into a new woman, with a different history and a different past, another mission to complete. A string of carefully laid plans and events, one right after the other, until the very last piece of the domino fell. That was what her life was about, and there was no place for boyfriends like John Watson and friends like Molly Hooper in it, not for long term. If she still were Rosamund… Maybe things would be different, then. Yes, Rosamund would have been a nurse, and a college professor, and she would have married someone like John and be friends with someone like Molly. If it all had played down differently, Rosamund would have had the full version of the life she was pretending to live while on this particular job. The life that she would have had if she hadn’t lost her family, if she hadn’t been at the wrong place at the wrong time, if she hadn’t sold her soul…

 

She couldn’t help causing John and herself unbearable pain, she knew that. She didn’t care much about the state her heart would be in when it all blew over, for she knew she’d have no other choice than to mend it or perish trying. Broken hearts had no place out there, not where she came from. She knew John would suffer because of her, and she was already hating herself because of that.

 

Maybe if she helped John help Molly, she could find some peace of mind and the ability to forgive herself, if only just a little, when the time came for her to break the heart of the man she’d fallen in love with. Maybe something good could come out of all of this, and she’d be feeling less guilty when she left John, and London, and her life as Mary. John would be shattered, and so would she, but perhaps he would remember not as someone that used and betrayed him, but as someone that prompted him to act with kindness on behalf of a good person in her time of need.

 

She knew it was wrong, using Molly to wash away some of the stains in her soul. But it couldn’t be worse than what she had already done and what was planning to do, right? She was not doing this only for herself, she really did want Molly to get better. Maybe she didn’t matter in the big scheme of things, maybe she was not an important part of the game. Maybe she didn’t count for her superiors, or for Sherlock Holmes himself, but Mary could make herself count for Molly’s sake, for as long as she had left on this mission.

 

_You get to Watson, you get to Holmes. As simple as that._

 

She would do that, all right. It’d cost her her heart, but that was her own fault for allowing emotions to get the best of her. No one had told her to fall in love with Dr. John Watson, after all. That had been her own doing, and she’d have to deal with the consequences. She would hold her end of the deal and get to Holmes. But she was determined that she would also get to Molly Hooper.

 

She closed her eyes and tried to will herself to sleep. It was late, and she had an early morning. The soft snores of the man resting by her side sounded just like a lullaby, even if a kind of noisy, strange one. Some would say it was more like a broken motor car engine, if anything. She didn’t care. It was a pleasant sound, and she wanted to cherish and save it for later, for when she didn’t have it. For when she didn’t have him.

  
The woman pretending to be Mary Morstan fell asleep around two o’clock in the morning, thoughts of two doctors and one consulting detective plaguing her overstimulated mind. She was lucky she still had a few weeks before she also had to worry about planning a Christmas Eve party at 221B Baker Street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would love to thank you all for the beautiful comments you constantly leave me. And I would love to thank my wonderful proofreaders, C-D and Rocío, for being so awesome to me.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.
> 
> Methods to induce vomit are discussed in detail in this chapter. It is not my intention, nor is it the goal of this story, to promote unhealthy behaviours. This story does not seek to encourage bulimia, anorexia, or any eating or mental health disorders. The information and descriptions here mentioned serve only the purpose of illustrating Molly's situation and the progress of her illness.

When she came home from tea with Mary and John, she spent two hours kneeling on the bathroom floor, cheeks and forehead drenched with tears and sweat, a tall glass of warm water with salt resting at arm’s length on the edge of the tube. The beverage was not any better than pushing two fingers down her throat, but it was supposed to make her sick quicker and without adding more damage from her fingernails to her already reddened, raw throat.

 

She’d gotten the idea from a girl that had commented that same afternoon on her blog. Not that girl Ellie. Someone else, writing under the name **flesh-eating-thoughts** , linked to what she supposed was another blog. She'd wanted to take a look at it, but her intention had been to double-check how to go from her place to the tea house before it was time to leave. She'd noticed she had a new comment and quickly read it out of curiosity (and because -and she could not control this- it made her anxious that all of a sudden she seemed to have an audience. Or rather Atelophobic and her online ramblings had an audience.) She had not had the faintest idea that the suggestions made by this person that, like Molly herself, hid behind a pseudonym, would come in handy on that very same night.

 

 

 

> **November 6**
> 
> **flesh-eating-thoughts** on **Sore throat**
> 
> Don't use your fingers, love. Even if your nails are very neatly trimmed you will still get a sore throat.
> 
>  
> 
> I recommend you heat up some water (I use an electric kettle for this; it’s real quick) and then let it cool, but not too much. It’s better if it’s warm or a little bit over room temperature. Then add less than a quarter of a tablespoon of salt. You’ll read in other blogs that some girls recommend adding up to three tablespoons, but this can be harmful to your body. While the high amount of sodium in your body will create shocks and force your stomach to throw up, it can also cause hypernatremia (a rise in serum sodium concentration and a decrease in total body water.) This is something serious since it can lead to brain injuries or circulatory problems (tachycardia, hypotension, just to name a few.)
> 
>  
> 
> I am a graduate chemist and ever since I started reading other blogs, while writing my own, I’ve noticed there are a lot of myths and a lack of information regarding the use and abuse of salty solutions to make oneself throw up. I think quality information is important in our community, and I am always a comment or direct message away if you have any doubts about this or other methods that involve solutions, or if you want any other questions answered.

 

Molly had felt overwhelmed by that person’s words, as if they’d literally dumped a ton of bricks on her lap without so much as a warning. It made her terribly anxious, knowing that there were ‘others’ out there reading what she wrote and writing back, sharing their tricks and secrets and opinions on what she should do and what was the best way to make herself sick without butchering even more her already abused throat. It was unsolicited, yes - or was it not? Did she have a right to complain about it if she was the one exposing herself willingly? There was an option to turn comments off. But she hadn’t chosen it when she set up the blog, and she hadn’t changed the settings after she got the first comment from Ellie. The text box and the ‘comment’ button at the end of each post certainly gave the idea that comments were welcome - encouraged and expected, even.

 

She could not deny that she had been curious about this other person’s blog. The only reason why she had not clicked on the link right away was that it would have made her late for tea with John and Mary. Later, when she came back home determined to finish what she’d started in the bathroom at the tea house -and which Mary interrupted- she remembered the advice.

 

The salty water.

 

Molly knew about hypernatremia, of course. She had gone to medical school, and she was a grown woman and a professional with a vast knowledge of human anatomy and biology. So was **flesh-eating-thoughts** , apparently. But others weren’t. It was nice of this person to want to take the time to offer good, reliable information to girls that may not have all available facts. Some people trusted too easily whatever came up first on a Google search. Molly wasn’t like that, but then she supposed that not all of those who were in the same situation had the privilege of an education.

 

Needles to say, Molly did not count herself among them. She wasn’t in any situation - or at least she was not in the same situation they were in. She was experimenting, like any scientist would, and there was nothing more to it. The only difference between what she did at work in the lab and what she was doing regarding her food intake was that she played the role of observer as well as that of test subject. Those people -Ellie, the person writing **flesh-eating-thoughts** \- probably had an eating disorder, or even several disorders. Molly didn’t. That was what made her different: she was choosing this, was doing all of this willingly. It was not a lifestyle more than pure professional, scientific work. She could stop whenever she wanted. She’d stop the minute she deemed there was nothing else she could learn or gain from this, once her curiosity was satisfied.

 

(Once Sherlock Holmes noticed her. Once he wanted her, bright and perfect mind transported by a body untouched and uncontaminated by something as basic and mundane as food. A mind like his very own, in a vessel like his very own.)

 

These people, on the other hand… They probably could not stop, and needed help that they could get from friends, family and health professional. Help they probably were offered but refused because they could not find in themselves what Molly did have: total, absolute control in each and every aspect.

 

Lack of identification with them did not stop Molly from dissolving a quarter of a tablespoon worth of salt in warm water. She drank it up in small sips. It didn’t cause the same instantaneous effect an almost full tablespoon would have. She knew that beforehand, knew it’d take longer to unsettle her stomach and force the half-digested food out. But it’d get her there, eventually. She’d just have to wait, sip the salty water and stay close to the toilet, ready to throw up when the waves of nausea washed her over, announcing the proximity of the relief she seeked.

 

When the vomit came, it was in spits and she had to keep on sipping water until everything she’d eaten at the tea house was purged. By the time she was finished, Molly was physically exhausted and covered in sweat. Every muscle in her body ached because of the effort to make herself sick by ingesting little to no salt and refraining from using her fingers.

 

It was different than what she was used to, gratification paced in a way that was almost excruciating at some points. But it was still wonderful. The relief was there, albeit in very small doses. Little victories. If she couldn't feel the pleasure like a big wave washing over her from the inside until her throat healed, then she'd take what she could for the time being. The release of endorphins was slower, but it was there. It was still perfect, like she achieved to become.

 

When she threw up bile, she knew she was done.

 

Sore and tired, she tried to stand up to brush her teeth and go to bed. She couldn’t. Her limbs were too shaky. Too heavy. (And was it not a contradiction? She never felt emotionally lighter than when she threw up.)  And so she curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor, sighing in pleasure when her heated skin came in contact with the cool tiles. _Just five minutes and I'll try to get up again,_ she thought. _Just five minutes._

 

Cramps in both her legs woke her up near six o'clock in the morning. She was able to brush her teeth and go to bed then, but she did not fall back asleep.

 

* * *

 

As November went on, the weather got colder. Molly got colder. Her charity shop sweaters got three sizes too big on her. She swam in them, and they were never warm enough. The lab and the morgue felt colder than usual, too. Her skin began drying, especially her lips. She wrote about it on her blog, and how lip balm helped. Ellie, Ingrid (that was **flesh-eating-thoughts’** s name, she discovered after taking the time to read her blog) and other three girls commented on it. It didn’t unsettle her as much as before, knowing that there were people out there reading what she wrote and ‘talking’ back to her, sharing their own knowledge and experiences of what it was like to make the choice not to eat, no matter the reasons behind it.

 

She started reading what they shared, too. She would leave a comment sometimes, especially if the person seemed to have doubts about something medical-related. She never revealed she was a doctor, though, and tried to keep her input as light and impersonal as possible. They knew her as Atelophobic and they never asked for her name, nor did they try to establish contact with her in any other way than commenting on her entries. She guessed their own names were pseudonyms as well (one of the bloggers she’d been reading frequently on the last two weeks called herself ‘Sky.’ Another one went by ‘Flower.’) The platform allowed users to ‘favourite’ blogs and subscribe for alerts when they updated. She did that with a couple she found particularly interesting, and kept tabs on a dozen others to skim through from time to time. Most of the content on those was on the emotional side of the road, but they had some good information or fact worth knowing among detailed stories about their personal lives.

 

It was all part of the experiment, of course, as was her own blog. Writing about what she did, how she did it, how she felt, what happened if she did this or if she didn’t do that, if she stopped this or didn’t stop that... It had never not been part of the experiment. And reading what others wrote was research. The people writing the entries she read and commenting on the ones she posted were, without knowing, other subjects in her experiment.

 

In her head, Molly had defined them as a group going through the same things as her, doing the same things she did. But they had not chosen it. Some of them truly wanted to stop and seeked help from physicians and psychiatrists, if not willingly then because their families were begging them to do something about what they considered a monster living within them. Others craved the pleasure and satisfaction that lack of food in their stomachs gave them but were not strong enough to go through the consequences such behaviour had on a person’s day to day life. All of them had their reasons, all of them had their opinions, and every story was different.

 

Molly did not judge and understood where everyone came from - she had always been very emphatic. She even related to some of the things they complained about or had issues with, like she supposed a lot of people could, even if they did not understand the pleasure and calm that came with withholding food. Whether they ate regularly or chose not to, most people had problems that were all very similar in fashion: friends, family, lovers, co-workers, classmates. Some of them were triggers, some others were not. What she knew she did not have in common with them was the label. Those that had seeked treatment at some point or considered it or even were under it called it an ‘eating disorder.’ There were others, the ones that insisted they had no interest in finding help to stop, referred to it as a lifestyle that they chose and became too tangled up in their ropes to break free. But in her case it was neither. Hers was not an eating disorder nor a lifestyle. These people had had to be hospitalised at some point, or taken time off work or school, or made changes they did not want because they could not stop. Because they had lost control. She hadn’t.

 

This did not represent any danger to her, and she was not doing anything she did not want to. And when she no longer wished to do it, she would stop.

 

There was a fear all those other blog writers had, even those that insisted they were happy with the lifestyle they’d chosen. The fear was not always spoken about, but it was there. It could be read among the lines. It could be sensed. It lingered in every paragraph, every sentence, every word.

 

They all feared the loss of control would lead to their deaths.

 

Molly didn’t. She knew, had always known. She would not die from this.

 

* * *

 

She was supposed to have her period on the 16th. She didn’t. Never one to pay attention to the dates (her cycles were fairly irregular), and swamped with work like she was, Molly noticed by the 25th. There were no pre-menstrual syndrome symptoms yet, either. She did not worry. There was only one explanation for it, and it wasn’t that the Catholic church was soon to announce the second coming of Christ or whatever they believed in.

 

(Molly was not a religious person. Her parents went to church sometimes, and as a child she would tag along with them. She lost all interest when she heard the priest read from the Genesis how a deity ‘breathed life’ into a mud statue- or so she’d understood. She did not believe it. She was familiar with Darwin’s work at that point, and she fancied his theory of evolution more than what looked like an old fairytale with difficult words and too many characters and plot twists.)

 

The absence of her period was expected. It had to happen at some point. She had considered it (and wondered when it would happen) in her notes on the experiment. Engaging in food restriction and/or compulsive purging like she’d been doing for almost ten months had an effect on the endocrine system. Something that was supposed to work in a certain way was now being controlled by her doing, her behaviour and choices, much in the same fashion that a certain consulting detective controlled his flesh and bones to make them only mere means of transport for his beautiful mind. She was on her way to that. _This_ , the amenorrhea, was an achievement. It was one more proof that she could have total control. Her own choices had led her to stop menstruating. It was by her hand that the normal secretion of Gonadotropin (the hormones secreted by gonadotrope cells) from the hypothalamus had been interrupted.

 

 _Look how in control I am,_ Molly thought to herself as she cleaned the body of a seventy year old woman before the post mortem. _The flawless machine that the human body is, altered by my choice of dietary restriction and purging. And it can stop whenever I want. I can stop whenever I want. It does as I say. It does as I please._ _It stops when I say so._

 

When that night she fainted on her way to the bathroom (she always weighed herself before going to bed, it was part of the routine) she also attributed it to ‘expected results’ of her experiment. She was unconscious on the floor for about ten minutes, and then it took her another half an hour to get up and carry on with what she was about to do. She packed extra Splenda packets in her bag for the following day- she’d made sure to always have some sweetener under the tongue during her shift as to not faint during work hours.

 

_Look how in control you are, Molly dear. Everything is perfect. And soon you will be perfect, too._

 

It was the day after that when it finally happened.

  
The day after that, she lost all fucking control.

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

It was ten past eight and she had just finished a long shift. A railway accident had taken place that morning - an unmoving, derailed train waiting for mechanical assistance hit by an oncoming service. Ninety three dead people, and a couple of hundreds injured. The media was comparing it to the Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash in 1952. She’d done post mortem after post mortem for over fourteen hours. Some of them had been children, and those always were the hardest. Most of the time it was fine, and morbid as it may sound, she enjoyed her career. (Maybe it was the only thing she truly liked about her life.) But, as it happens in any workfield, some day were harder than others. Four pediatric autopsies in a day of children that had been perfectly fine before a train accident was a bitterer pill to swallow than a violently murdered adult or a middle-aged cancer patient.

 

Both emotionally and physically drained, the moment she put the scalpel down she’d wanted nothing but to freshen up and go home. The muscles in her back and neck ached in a way that had nothing to do with the delicious pain she found in the stomach cramps and persistent headaches, but it was very satisfactory nonetheless. A family’s grief was more bearable (if such thing truly existed) if they didn’t have any questions unanswered. Molly knew from first hand experience that the only thing worse than not knowing was imagining what you did not know. The mind could, and did, come up with scenarios that often were crueler and more terrible than the truth. Her job provided those answers to the loved ones of the deceased, and in cases like this her carefully filled and detailed reports would stand in court to show the consequences of the negligence and deficiency still found in some systems. So, all in all, she felt her day had been productive and meaningful.

 

It was odd, to say the least, that she deemed good a day spent cutting up corpses. Less than twenty four hours ago, the subjects on the slab had been living, breathing people going about their days without suspecting that the following morning, when on their way to work or whatever obligations they had, they would meet their end. She got to go home after sewing up together the last one. They didn’t. They had slept on a bed the night before, next to their significant other maybe, but when she upped and left she’d be leaving them tucked in a white sheet inside a refrigeration chamber. What to others was horrible and depressing, perhaps even macabre, was natural to Molly. She saw this every day. She did this every day.

 

(Molly had long ago stopped wondering if her job, so full of gruesome details and too close to death, which some people feared or disliked to talk about, was the reason why she didn’t have any close friendships. She hadn’t had those when she was a child whose interests leaned more towards science and books than dolls and boys. She hadn’t had any friends when she went to university, either. And all of the colleagues she sometimes went out to lunch or attended congresses and conferences with had wonderful, thriving social lives in spite of spending eight to ten hours a day cutting up dead bodies. And none of them had shown any interest in making Molly part of that richer social life. Thus, there had to be something wrong with her. She was, and always had been, the problem, the sole cause of her loneliness. She was to blame, not the rest. The rest did fine. The rest was good.)

 

The locker room was empty and dimly lit when she stepped in. Dr. Giuliani had been there last before she took the over the night shift when Molly’s ended. Molly supposed she had forgotten to turn off all the lights. She didn’t turn them all back on, welcoming the partial darkness and its contrast to the bright white light she’d been all day working under. It made her heart hurt. It had started after the experiment, and she embraced the throbbing pain between her eyes as another wonderful proof that her carefully planned steps toward perfection were working beautifully. As beautiful as she hoped her mind would be once all ties that connected it to an imperfect body were severed. The pain did not interfere with her work - she did not allow it, and she’d vowed to herself that she would stop the moment it did. It was almost delicious and she fed off it. Sometimes she even forgot it was there, elbows too deep down in a torso. As long as her vision did not get blurry (it did not) and her hands didn’t shake (her Y incision still was perfect) she could work through the headaches.

 

(For an outsider, it would look completely contradictory: she longed for the numbness, wanted to disconnect body from mind in the way _he_ so cleverly did, but she found joy and pleasure in the physical pain. Molly knew better, though: the pleasure came from the knowledge that the experiment was going well and she would soon emancipate body from mind and feel nothing at all.)

 

Knowing she'd need to keep her strength up to go through such a busy day, she had taken fifteen minutes to eat something for lunch. She'd brought four cherry tomatoes and two small leaves of lettuce from home. She did not join the other staff members, favouring the quietness of her office over the shared break room. (A couple of days ago Mallory, a lab technician, had commented on how little Molly’s rice and carrots serving was. She'd rather stay close to the deceased while she ate - dead people did not ask questions about your eating habits.) The rest of the day, she'd gone through her routine of drinking water every chance she got and placing a pack of Splenda under her tongue.

 

Fishing the one packet she still had in the pocket of her trousers, she sat down on the bench facing the locker rooms and teared it open, fingers steady as ever. Her hands were nothing if precision instruments, nails perfectly trimmed and always clean, fingers calloused and rough. Sometimes, when she looked at them (and she was doing that just then while she sat in the poorly lit locker room at St. Bart’s Hospital morgue) Molly could not help but wonder if they’d ever touch a body that wasn’t dead. If they’d ever touch _life_ , a living, breathing human body made of tissues and muscle and fibers and arteries and veins and bones that were not soon to burn or decompose, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

 

A soft, bitter laugh escaped her lips, the only noise in an otherwise soundless room. Who would want to be touched by her? Who would want to _touch her_? Small breasts, small lips, small everything. She’d always felt so small, almost insignificant. She knew she _was_ insignificant, pathology the only field she excelled at in her adult life - just like her school work had been the only thing she’d excelled at as a child and young girl. Without her bright, morbid, dead-things-focused mind, she had nothing to offer to the living. All she had to offer only interested the dead.

 

The saccharine dissolved slowly in her mouth as she contemplated this, doe-like brown eyes fixed on her hands. As of late, that was happening a lot: she’d be looking at something for minutes without any realization of time passing by. It was pure bliss, her mind blank and everything around her disappearing as if faded, but not quite so.

 

They tasted better, those instants of oblivion and disconnection from the body she hated so much, than food ever had or ever would.

 

(The only thing she imagined could taste better than _this_ were _his_ kisses sucking the breath out of her body. Since she did not have those to make her feel lightheaded, starvation would have to do.)

 

“I need a recently deceased female, age forty five to sixty flve. Preferable cause of death: blunt head trauma. No severe internal organ damage if possible. It would be helpful if the frontal and nasal bones were fractured. If the lungs were those of a long time smoker, that would be preferable, too.”

 

Molly had her back to the door and did not hear him come into the locker room. His deep baritone voice startled her, and white lights danced before her eyes when she turned around and stood up (that was something she had been experiencing as of late - the dizziness and momentary loss of vision every time she moved her head too quickly.) He was standing under the threshold, tall and brooming and _gorgeous_ in his black Belstaff coat.

 

“Sh-sh-sh,” _You stupid, useless excuse of a person, you can’t even say his name without stuttering like the idiot you are._ “Sh-sherlock,” she managed at last. “Wh-what a-are y-you d-d-doing here?”

 

_Stop stuttering, you useless piece of trash. Stop it. Just-stop-it._

 

If he was bothered by her stuttering, he did not show it. The consulting detective had, as always, the aspect of a god from a Greek mythology carved in white marble: stoic, immovable, and out of reach for the mere mortals who carried the weight of their flawed flesh and bones.

 

“I need to see the aforementioned body of a recently deceased, long-time smoker female with her frontal and nasal bones fractured and no severely damaged internal organs. She must be no younger than forty five and it would be ideal if she were not older than sixty five,” he repeated the words in a tone that indicated he was bored.

 

_He already told you what he wanted, you stupid, useless thing. You piece of trash, you’re not even capable of wording a simple question correctly and make others understand you. You stupid thing, no wonder no one loves or wants you, you can’t even speak like a person._

 

“I-I-I m-meant t-to a-ask wh-y you a-are here n-now.”

 

Not a muscle of his flinched. He just stood there and stared at the pale young woman from across the locker room. And in the same boring tone he did something that was very rare of him: he offered an explanation.

 

“This afternoon I had a case that was barely a 2, total waste of mine and John’s time. Solved it within the first twenty minutes, spent the rest of the day withholding information from Gaspar and the Yard to see how long it took them to arrive at the conclusion that it had been a domestic incident and not a homicide. Prompted by the need to do something productive and estimating you have already completed a fair share of post mortems for the victims of this morning’s railway accident, I decided to see if you have any subject that meets the criteria for an experiment on long time smoker women and osteosclerosis. Some bone and lung tissue samples will do.”

 

“M-my s-shift is over.” Confident to see the stuttering  was not getting worse or rendering her unable to speak at all, she continued. “Dr. Giuliani is in t-the morgue now.”

 

Sherlock acknowledged this with a nod of his head and said nothing, but he did not move or make any indications that he would go, either. He stood there, waiting, a look on his face that by now she knew very well how to read, knew its meaning and the reasoning behind it.

 

He had been correct in his deductions (probably based on demographics, she supposed): there had been a woman aged forty five to sixty five with evidence of long term smoking in her lungs, dead by blunt head trauma (easily deduced to due the nature of the accident) - Molly had done the post mortem herself. And he was now correct in standing there, quiet and silent and waiting, biding his time until she gave him what he wanted.

 

Because to Sherlock Holmes, it did not matter that Dr. Hooper's shift was over and Dr. Giuliani was responsible for the morgue now. It didn’t matter that she was exhausted after a long, very busy shift. He was bored, and frustrated with the time he’d wasted on a case that was not even a proper murder, and he wanted those bone and lung samples now to placate his curiosity. She wished nothing but to go home, shower and change into fresh clothes, and sleep, but he did not care about that.

 

“There was a-a sixt-t-y two years old woman,” she said. “Her f-facial b-bones were fractured. N-no severe int-t-ernal organ damage, though. But her l-lungs showed signs of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.” She didn’t stutter through the medical terminology, and that made her feel a little less uncomfortable with herself. “I can wheel her out f-for you,” she offered. “We can g-get you t-the s-samples you n-need. I-I a-am sure we c-can d-do it without b-b-bothering Dr. Giuliani.”

 

Once more, he chose not to say anything. He simply nodded his head to acknowledge he heard her. As they stepped out the locker room and made their way to the morgue, Sherlock did not utter a word of gratitude to Molly for staying after hours to help him when she’d had every right to say no and leave. But he knew she wouldn’t refuse him anything, and that was why he’d stood there, waiting, until she agreed to provide him with the samples.

 

_You’d give him your own bones, all two hundred and six of them. All he has to do is ask. But why would he want them, though? Why would he want anything from you, you useless, stupid piece of trash?_

 

And yet, she gave. It was not only about the bone and lung tissue samples from the railway accident victim, of course. She gave him more than her time on a night when she would have preferred going home right away. She’d been giving him her every thought since they’d met on the day Detective Inspector Lestrade introduced them. And she could not imagine a single thing she would not give him if he asked.

 

_Oh, don’t think he asks things from you because you’re valuable and useful to him. You are not valuable and useful to anyone, you worthless thing. He asks because you give. He uses you. You mean nothing to him. Don’t think you are special because he asks things from you. You aren’t. You are special to no one, why would you be?_

 

Dr. Giuliani did not like Sherlock, so Molly made him wait outside. She excused herself with the other pathologist and told her she had to wheel a body out to take some samples. The older, blonde woman hummed her agreement without taking her eyes off the liver she was measuring. It was as if she knew who the samples were for. Most of the staff at St. Bart’s did not like the consulting detective. Molly was the only one that cooperated with him. _And that, dear, it’s why he uses you. Because you let him. You let him walk all over you. The doormat at his home probably gets more care from him that you ever will._

 

She got the samples and preserved each on a Petri dish. He liked things a certain way, so she made sure that everything was to his liking. Dr. Giuliani cast a look at Molly when she said goodnight and left, her handbag over one shoulder and a small container with the Petri dishes in the other, but said nothing.

 

He was waiting for her in the hallway. It was a cold night, winter fast approaching, but he’d cracked a window open and was leaning on the windowsill holding a cigarette to his mouth.

 

“I-I-I t-though you’d quit s-s-smoking,” Molly commented with a shy smile. “Thought y-you used t-the patches n-now.”

 

“I was in the mood,” he said without looking at her. He kept on smoking in silence, his eyes focused on the black pitch darkness that engulfed the world outside the building they were in. And then, unexpectedly, he asked: “Have you had dinner yet?”

 

“No,” she answered truthfully, a surge of pride heavy in her chest. She thought of the pack of Splenda that had been dissolving under her tongue when he found her in the locker room. She didn’t have plans to eat anything else when she got home. She’d eaten lunch already and was too tired to follow the meal plan she’d made months ago. She’d just drink a bottle of water or two cans of Coke. “Y-you w-were r-right, y-you know,” she said, “eating s-slows one d-down when one’s working. You know, digestion.”

 

“You have not eaten anything all day?” he asked, still not looking at her.

 

 _Oh,_  she thought. She understood now. He had noticed what she was doing, and now he wanted to know how heavily involved she was. He wanted to check she was not doing things by halves. He wanted to make sure she would not turn out to be a disappointment, a  failure, with this, too, like she’d been with so many other things she had tried in her life and that he’d probably had no problem deducing.

 

But she could make deductions, too. She was not as bright as the world’s only consulting detective, but she could at least see as what it was: he was trying out her strength. And she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing that she had had lunch that day. The experiment was her own, and every victory was hers. If he wanted to know the details, he’d have to stop hiding behind riddles and be more straightforward about it.

 

“Y-you d-don’t eat when you’re working either,” Molly pointed out. And when he didn’t say anything, she added: “H-here a-are t-the s-samples you wanted,” and held the container to him. He took it from her wordlessly and placed it on a wooden bench near where they were standing. He finished his cigarette and lit another, showing no signs of wanting to leave St. Bart’s any time soon, but he didn’t ask for anything else from her either.

 

She couldn’t tell if she was bothering Sherlock or not by standing next to him, waiting in case there was something else he needed. Did he expect her to offer the lab so he could work on the samples? Should she offer? Molly was beginning to feel weaker and tired - she wanted to go home. But she was also certain that if he asked for her assistance at the lab, she would stay. Even if she was dead on her feet, she would do it.

 

“Is there a-a-anything else you need? A-anything else I can assist y-you with?”

 

He made a sound, some sort of hum, to acknowledge her. But that was it. The tiredness was wearing her out, and the tension she felt being in such close proximity to him while he did something as simple as smoking (now he was on his third cigarette) made her feel dizzy. Being alone in the middle of an empty hallway at St. Bart’s with Sherlock Holmes puffing smoke out of his gorgeous mouth felt intimate somehow. Even if he was ignoring her. Even if the silence rang in her ears loud as a thousand drums. Even if Molly was trying to be as quiet as possible, petite wallflower as she’d always been, as to not disturb him and be granted the pleasure of just _observing him be_.

 

But she couldn’t stay quiet, no. She had to talk and ruin it. Because she was useless, and stupid, and she ruined everything. Every time. Always. She could not just be content with sharing the same space as he, like she should have. She had to go ahead and open her mouth and say the stupid things she was always saying, trying to engage in conversation with him. As if she were interesting enough for him to converse with!

 

The only explanation she would find later would be that she was a masochist. That she liked the pain. Otherwise, she would have kept her bloody mouth shut and simply rejoice in him not asking her to leave him be while he smoked, allowing him to breathe the smoke he was puffing out and that she craved as if it were the oxygen she needed to live.

 

“I’ve n-never s-smoked a cigarette,” Molly confessed. “M-my classmates at c-college d-did all t-the t-time. I-I n-never d-did.” She had no idea why she was telling him all this, or if he was even listening to him. Maybe he was lost somewhere inside his brilliant, beautiful mind, away from someone as common and imperfect as her. And yet for some reason she insisted. ( _Because you are stupid, Molly. That’s why._ ) Her mother had always said that to keep an awkward conversation going, you had to ask the other person a question, for it would prompt them to talk. _And things will flow naturally from them, dear, you’ll see,_ had been Mrs. Hooper’s words.

 

So she did that.

 

She asked Sherlock a question.

 

“Can I- Can I-I have o-one?”

 

He did not look at her when he said:

 

“A cigarette? No.”

 

“Oh, ok.”

 

_What the bloody hell were you thinking? That you two would bond over cigarettes? That he would teach you how to smoke? You better shut up once and for all, you idiot. Say goodnight and go home, focus on your experiment, the only thing you are good at besides your job cutting up the dead and smuggling samples from a man that wouldn’t even spare a cigarette on you, you useless piece of trash._

 

But she didn’t.

 

The words were out of her mouth before she thought better of it and kept it shut.

 

“If I b-begin s-smoking m-maybe when I’m d-dead you c-can use m-my l-lungs for your experiments.”

 

It was then that he did turn his head and looked at her.

 

“What did you just say?” he asked. The imperative tone he used made the hair on her arms stand up a little. It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it was not unpleasant either.

 

“I-I s-said,” Molly started, not understanding why the irises in his eyes were darker all of a sudden, “t-that if I-I b-begin s-smoking t-then m-maybe once I’m d-dead you c-can have my l-lungs and use t-them f-for your experiments.” She quickly added: “I-I was j-just j-joking.”

 

_Let’s not have the world’s only consulting detective thinking you are delusional enough to think he could ever want anything from you, you ugly, stupid, good for nothing, worthless thing._

 

“It was… It-t was j-just a j-joke,” she repeated, seeing he had not taken his eyes off her yet.

 

“Do not make jokes, Molly.”

 

She laughed nervously, and once more talked without premeditation. The words just left her mouth as easily as the vomit did every time she pushed her fingers or a tongue depressor down her throat.

 

“M-maybe you’d f-find me m-more us-useful if I-I d-died in a crash and fractured m-my f-facial b-bones. I-I m-mean, if just m-my l-lungs wouldn’t s-suffice, you c-can have m-my s-skull, too ”

 

Something flickered in his eyes, something dark that Molly had never seen before in them but that somehow did not look foreign. She did not have time to process what it was, or what was happening, and neither could she try and understand, for he reacted in a way that could only be described as primal and unpredictable: he grabbed her by both shoulders, threw her up against the wall and pressed his lips to hers.

 

The world stopped on its axis. It felt as if every second in the life of Dr. Molly Hooper had only been worthy because they led her to this glorious moment.

 

She could not breathe, but oxygen had never seemed so unimportant. Her body was trapped between the wall and his. Sherlock’s hands were cupping her face and bringing it up to smash against his, his calloused, long violinist fingers cradling her head. As she brought her hands up trace the contours of his face, he bit and chewed on her lower lip so hard that she was sure she’d soon taste her own blood.

 

Molly did not care. She did not want this to end. Oxygen be damned, everything else in the world be damned. He could draw all the blood he wanted from her lips, he could bleed her dry if he wished to. She’d let him and not complain through a minute of it. Molly didn’t care what he did to her, as long as he did not stop kissing her and holding her up against the wall the way he was.

 

It all ended too soon, though. She was dizzy and shaking like a leaf when he broke apart. He took her hands off where they had been grabbing his face, and arranged them at her sides as if she were a doll. Breathless and with her heart throbbing painfully against her ribs, Molly looked up at him with her doe-like eyes searching on his expression for something that explained what had just happened and why. But she found nothing, for he bore none of the clues that were so easily visible in her: the disheveled hair, the short of breathness, the swollen, trembling lips. It was as if he had walked unaffected out of the fire he had started and that was now consuming her whole.

 

He spoke before she could regain the ability for coherent speech.

 

“Thank you for your help with this one experiment in particular, Dr. Hooper.”

 

Nothing but an experiment. It had all been an experiment. The cruel bastard had pushed her up against a wall and kissed her breathless because he wanted to experiment on God knows what. He wanted to experiment on _her,_  probably, maybe to see how long it took him to break her completely, how much she’d allow to be humiliated by him, how long she took to pick up the pieces… Perhaps all of them.

 

 _Don’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you cry, don’t let him know he’s breaking you_ , she thought. Those were the words she had told herself a thousand times before, on every occasion someone’s attitude has brought her to the edge of tears. They were not really necessary now, though, because she found, surprisingly enough, that even if her heart felt heavier than ever and about to burst with the pain, her body did not have the energy to go through the process of crying.

 

He turned around, took the container with the samples she’d collected for him, and left Molly standing there, in a semi-dark empty hallway right outside the morgue, bruises already forming on her lips from the force with he had kissed her.

 

He never heard the words she whispered to herself, a tone so bitter it _almost_ washed away the taste of him. No one did hear hear her when she finally spoke again, for she was, as always, alone.

 

“I’m not your experiment, Sherlock”

 

* * *

 

The way home from Bart’s was but a blur. She walked to the station, rode the tube, walked from the station to her building - all in autopilot. Numbness had spread over her, and for that Molly was thankful. Other than her still pulsing upper lip, when she opened the door to her flat she did not look or feel a bit as if Sherlock Holmes had kissed her passionately (there was no other word for it) less than two hours before.

 

Locked in the bathroom, she took her clothes off and stepped on the scale. She wrote her weight in the notebook where she kept all the data for her experiment.

 

( _Thank you for your help with this one experiment in particular, Dr. Hooper_ , ran his words in her ears.)

 

She had not vomited all day. She hadn't had the time. But now she didn't want to take some pleasure where she still could because she was scared it would wash away the lingering sensation of his lips on her, their texture and taste where he had pressed them. Their tongues had not touched, and she couldn't help but wonder if she would ever find the will to put food in her mouth again had they done so, for she'd surely live in fear or losing that, too.

 

He was fucking with her experiment, that was what he was doing. He didn't want her to succeed. It was a barrier he was trying to build up between them so she wouldn't get closer. Oh, she had him almost where she wanted him, then, right? Grasping desperately and using all of his resources to stop her from becoming just like him. Stop her from becoming an ideal match, the kind of person he could want. The kind of person he was scared of wanting.

 

But if she had him where she wanted him, then why was she hurting so fucking much? Why did it feel like he had the upper hand this time around? Why did she feel like her experiment was threatened by the very same reason it had come to be: _him?_

 

He had exerted his power over her by demanding something he probably didn't even need or want to begin with. He'd made her stay after hours and cater to his whimpers like he always did. And then he had kissed her out of nowhere, no apparent reason whatsoever, called it an experiment and walked out on her. Was it to show her that she was nothing, that she meant maybe even less than the Petri dishes in the container he had taken home with him? Was it to punish her for her morbid humour about her own death and how he could benefit from her mortal remains? What the fuck had it been about? Had he kissed her to confuse her, to play mind games with her?

 

All of the contradictions in her life that she did not care enough about to notice, blinded as she was by a problem she did not want to recognize for what it really was, his kiss was the most torturing one. He had crashed into her, sucked the air out of her, and she had never felt more together in her whole life than she did while he held her up against a wall and shut her up with his mouth. But the moment it was over, she came apart, her biggest fear (abandonment) gripped her by the throat, an invisible hand threatening to cut her breath short in a way that was not good at all.

 

It had felt like being run over by a train, the way he had kissed her breathless to then call it an experiment and walk away. This time it had been so much more than letting him walk all over her. He had fucking put her in the middle of the railway and run her over.

 

No second thoughts.

 

No mercy.

 

He had no mercy on her, or did he? (Did he even have mercy on himself?)

 

When she got into bed after brushing her teeth and changing into pajamas, she came to the somehow satisfying (albeit horrible) conclusion that he had acted out of cruelness: he had seen she was in control of her body and mind now, and he had wanted to take some of it away from her. He had wanted to show her that she still had not managed to become the kind of person that he was, cold and detached, intellect completely separated from bones, nerve endings and vulnerable flesh.

 

And he was right. She was still imperfect. She was still worthless. Of course he was right.

 

She hated him for it, hated how well he knew her and how to use her for whatever he pleased whenever he pleased. Hated how easily he had made her feel out of control.

 

Sherlock asked, asked, asked. It was funny, that word. How it sounded. Molly thought about the conjugation of the verb over and over again while she lay in bed, face up to the immaculate white ceiling, her migraine so bad it made her unable to fall asleep. He asked, asked, asked. _Asked asked asked._  It sounded like the noises that ripped right through her reddened, irritated throat when she pushed two fingers down it to vomit.

 

He asked and she gave. She always gave. Every time. Always. And he took. He took, took, took. It was another word that sounded funny to Molly. _Took took took._  Oh, how it reminded her of the beating of a heart, her years as a medical student when she worked with bodies that breathed and felt and were warmth to the touch and had hearts that beat. And they all sounded something like _took took took_. It had been a long time ago.

 

She worked with dead people, cold and pale skin, blue lips, muscles and nerves all useless and stiff. Those hearts didn't beat. Those people didn't breath.

What she saw every day were the shells, the empty vessels that mere hours ago had been host to  _something._  Someone. She never knew them, just their bodies. The soon to be decomposing flesh detached from whoever the organs she weighed and the bones she measured had belonged to.

 

Sherlock only took from her. He took, took, took, and she let him. Oh, how could have she not let him! She would have cut her own chest open with her scalpel and handed him her heart if he asked her to, arteries and veins and all, the whole muscle was his to do with whatever he damned well pleased!

 

Eyes open and fixed on an indeterminate spot in the ceiling, her food deprived mind imagined the scene: her open chest, the bleeding wound, blood on her hands and on her lab coat. White cotton soaked in bright red. Her still beating heart on her hand. _Took took took_ . He is in front of her, as beautiful and unreachable as he had been earlier that night leaning on the windowsill and smoking. And she offers him her heart but he doesn't take it. He takes everything else she's got, but this that she is giving him willingly he doesn't take. He doesn't want it. She pleads with him to take it, to hold it, touch it, feel it. He grabs it violently and throws it to the trash bin, where he thinks it belongs. Where he thinks _she_ belongs. And he leaves and she stays standing there, bleeding out, the sound of her heartbeat -  _took took took_ \- getting weaker and weaker until she can't hear it anymore. Until it stops.

 

She laughed bitterly at this realization. Laughed bitterly at the mental imagine she made of him tossing her heart in the trash bin.

 

What a curious thing is, the food deprived mind. It makes you come up with the weirdest, cruelest thoughts. And in the state she was in, laughing was easier, more effortless than crying. Crying would have taken too much. She didn't have the energy to spare. She couldn't have had if she had wanted to. Bitter laughter would have to do to express some of what she was feeling that night.

 

She couldn't cry and her laughter was bitter. She couldn't sleep because of the migraine, and the stomach cramps were back. She still could hear the _took took took_ her heart made against her ribs - but the noises she made when she pushed her fingers down her throat sounded louder as of late. She had noticed.

 

She wondered how long until some other pathologist, Dr. Giuliani maybe, had her body on their slab, for right now she felt closer to the cadavers she saw at work than to any human being.  

 

She knew she would not die from starvation ( _I will not die from this_ ). She could stop that whenever she wanted, she knew that. _That_ experiment would be over when she said so.

 

The problem was she could not stop him. And she could not stop what she became when he was around and did the things he did.

 

No, she would not die from her own experiment. But she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t die from the burning mark of his lips on hers, the memory of the kiss they shared, and the knowledge that it had been an experiment for him and nothing more. The knowledge that when it came to Sherlock Holmes, she had no fucking control.

 

Wouldn't it serve him right if she showed him? Wouldn't it prove him wrong if she showed him, and herself, that any experiments made on her were solely in her control?

 

Yes, it'd be good to show him. She would fucking show him, all right. This experiment was hers and hers only, and he had no say in it. He would not interfere. He would not stand between her and the success of what she was working so hard for.

 

Ignoring the splitting headache she'd had for over an hour, she got up and dressed herself again. She was furious all of a sudden, and feeling strangely energized. She was buzzing with something, some sort of desperate need to set things straight and tell him there were boundaries. She didn't know exactly what she'd say or how, she just knew there was poison in her body that wouldn't go away if she vomited until her throat was raw and red again.

 

She hailed a cab and gave the driver an address she knew by heart although she had never set foot in that place. And, thirty minutes later, when she stepped out of the vehicle at Baker Street, Dr. Molly Hooper was still shaking like a leaf. Only that this time it was with fury.

 

_Oh, I'll fucking show you who is in control, Sherlock Holmes._

 

She did not know she was not, for if anything, that night she was more out of control than she'd been in the past ten months.

 

And yet she was convinced of the contrary, oh yes she was. When she knocked on the door of 221B she was convinced that she'd fucking show him.

 

Yes, she'd fucking show him.

 

She would fucking show him.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

He could shoot a hole into the wall. Maybe he would, later. It was remarkable that he had not done so yet, for the violin was proving to be an ineffective source of calmness after almost seventy two hours of playing practically non-stop. If anything, the more he paced the flat with his long, calloused fingers working the bow and strings incessantly into classical piece after classical piece, the more agitated he got. The last case that had represented any challenge to him had been solved three days ago. Whatever came through the blog was easy, and boring, and so simple, even Detective Inspector Lestrade could have had a go at it and succeeded. Frustration and the lack of stimuli were eating him alive.

 

The physical and physiological release masturbation provided was no longer an option.  It was not a lack of biological need (he refused to call it desire, he would not call it desire) so much as an aversion to seeing to that need being satisfied (which was, in itself, sheer torture.) He did not want to give in and masturbate, even if the pent-up tension was there, making it worse, making him desperate in a way he had not thought he’d ever experience again after going through rehab the last time. He wouldn’t be able to think of any other situation than those involving Dr. Hooper, and even if the erections happened on their own every morning without him envisioning any arousing scenario, he knew the moment he laid a finger on his throbbing cock he’d think of her. He could not, would not, risk it, so he’d rather go without masturbation at all.

 

Sherlock didn't want to admit it, but he knew no one else but her would do. For someone who claimed to be a sociopath that only needed to get off because it was a bodily function, a biological urge and whatnot, he had become addicted to doing so to thoughts and fantasies of one single person.

 

In fact, he had not come back to her room in his Mind Palace at all, not  since the night he noticed the abuse she'd been inflicting on her body. He feared what she could convince him to do to her if he visited her. He feared what could happen if he began to fuck her (his prick or his mouth, it didn't matter whether it was with one or the other). It scared him, the possibility that he might want to touch her with an intimacy that outweighed sexual desire, kiss her eyelids shut and cradle her in his arms, skin on skin, and whisper words in her ears that he'd never believed himself capable of uttering to another human being. He was terrified of the possibility of a sexual fantasy only created with the purpose of facilitating masturbation becoming a vivid vision of what he'd do to protect her and comfort the Molly that existed outside his mind.

 

And, of course, he had not been to see _her_ , the Molly in the flesh and bones that were being consumed by her own behaviour. His visits to St. Bart’s had always been about the work. The cases. The experiments. He had not had a reason to set foot in there, so he hadn’t. He had not gone looking for reasons, either. He could have. He could have shown up and demanded to use the lab for one of his experiments. And yet he had chosen to stay at Baker Street and work on things that could be easily done with the equipment he owned and kept there. He could have decided to look into a cold case, and perhaps that could have led him to St. Bart’s for consultation on autopsy records. But he hadn’t. Every time he had felt the impulse, the urge, he had turned to his violins and played for hours until his fingers opened up again and bled, never giving the cuts and blisters enough time to heal before they became raw and bloody again. Oh he played for days (and nights, to John’s annoyance.) Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Beethoven, Vivaldi. All of their greatest, most complicated pieces he played from memory until his hands shook so hard he could not hold the bow or touch the strings properly. On and on he played for weeks, first in between cases and now that he had nothing, absolutely nothing in three days, he was playing constantly and was determined he’d only stop if something interesting came through the blog or Lestrade called with a quadruple homicide in a room locked from the inside, whichever happened first.  

 

How could this, playing until the skin on his fingertips was raw and his dactilar prints were barely visible, be any better than shooting up? It was not better for him, it didn’t do, wasn’t the same and would never be, but it kept people’s noses away from where they did not belong. To outsiders the violin was innocent. Harmless. A violin never killed anyone. It helped him think. It gave him something to do with his body while his mind was somewhere else. That was how everyone around him saw it, including John. Even if he complained, Sherlock knew that his flatmate found comfort in knowing the former drug addict he lived with was turning to music to distract himself rather than to heroin or cocaine. (No matter how many times he explained that he wasn’t one and never had been, that was how people saw him: a former drug addict. John was no exception, even if he had been sober for a long time when they met and still was sober.) That was why he chose the violin: others thought little of it, found it annoying perhaps if they did not enjoy classical music, but that was it. He was not harming himself or alternating his state of conscience for all they could see. Playing music did not involve needles or vials or bags of white powder, therefore it possessed no threat to him. The blisters and cuts and the fingers drenched in blood? Occupational hazards. All violinists had them; finger cuts, even deep ones as Sherlock’s, were the price to pay for creating such beautiful, soul-touching sounds. He had long ago learnt that you could hurt and abuse yourself all you wanted if something good came out to show for it. Drug users did terrible things to their health and needed rehabilitation, but staying up for seventy two hours straight pacing your flat while you played Bach flawlessly was a symptom of genius.

 

What to others was a creative outlet, to him was a form of self-harm. It was torture. He was torturing himself and he knew it. He was choosing to do so. It was not enough, it was not as effectively calming or placating after the first twenty four hours, and he was desperate to shoot a hole in the wall. But he was doing it, kept doing it, by choice. That night when he first bled for _her_ , Sherlock realized that the physical pain, the shaking of his bloody fingers, the trembling of both his arms - it numbed everything else, if only for a while. To him, a man that had always considered flesh and bones nothing but a necessary vessel for the mind, the pain that came with playing compulsively was a balm of sorts when he felt bored, overwhelmed, frustrated and trapped. He who had always thought that something as fragile and easy broken, bended and corrupted as the human body was not worthy of hosting something as perfect as the well stimulated and nurtured human mind, was now using its vulnerability to his own advantage.

 

It was starting to get frustrating and maddening in itself, though, and he wanted to crawl out of his own skin. He needed a case, something to do, something to distract himself. A call from Detective Inspector Lestrade would have been much welcome that morning, even if he had not slept in three days and his hands looked like he had committed murder with them. But the most interesting thing going on that cold November day was a railway accident that had taken place earlier. An unmoving, derailed train waiting for mechanical assistance had been hit by an oncoming service. There were over ninety fatal victims and a couple of hundred injured. Boring. John considered it was very interesting, and he had followed the live coverage on BBC, complaining from time to time that Sherlock’s incessant playing bothered him. He played louder to annoy him.

 

He only put his instrument down when much wanted news from the Yard came in. A double homicide in a private residence near Tottenham Court Road. It was not a quadruple murder in a room locked from the inside, but it was a murder nonetheless, and Gary and his people were ( _shocking, really_ ) puzzled. He took a cab to the address Lestrade texted him, and John went with him.

 

The excitement wore off pretty quickly, the breath of fresh air he thought he'd enjoy nothing but a pathetic puff. As soon as he set foot in the crime scene, he spotted a dozen little things that were off, details that were fundamental to the solving of the case and that the Yard had, of course, considered insignificant or missed altogether. He figured it out in twenty minutes, and it turned out it hadn’t even been a murder. Domestic accident - a freak domestic accident, he’d give them that, but an accident nonetheless. It was boring. It represented no stimuli. It frustrated him even more, because the promise of something interesting vanished right in front his eyes, and his hands calloused and cut and raw from playing the violin for three days straight itched with the need to hold something and finding there was, once again, nothing. Just the instrument and the bow waiting for him at home, ready to be picked up again and played until the fresh and old cuts opened, until he bled again, until the physical pain in his arms and fingers numbed everything else and made him forget the boredom, the frustration, the withdrawal.

 

He kept his deductions to himself for a couple of hours out of spite towards George and those other inept from the Yard. He found that frustrating, too, the fact that a mind like his was finding intellectual pleasure in observing how those idiots walked in circles convinced they had a homicide in front of them. When Gunter thought out loud of an hypothesis vaguely similar to what had actually happened, Sherlock went on a fifteen minute ramble explaining in detail how those two people had ended up dead, desperate to get out of his brain all the information he’d kept bottled up while he watched Lestrade give Anderson’s low IQ a run for its money.

 

When he and John left, Sherlock was in a foul mood. He was angry at the lack of interesting cases, he was angry at Lestrade and the Yard for their ineffectiveness, and he was at angry at himself simply because.

 

(No, not simply because. He was angry at himself because he could not stop thinking about Dr. Molly Hooper. That was what --who-- he wanted to run away and hide from. That was why he desperately needed cases and distractions. That was why he turned to the violin and played until he hurt himself: he needed to numb his instinct, push away thoughts of her, keep himself from visiting her in his Mind Palace and to hold her, and rock her to sleep, and whisper words of comfort in her ears while he tried to deduce what was that made her so sad, so miserable, so desperate that she was eating herself alive mouthful by mouthful.

 

But he would not admit that. No. It was easier to blame it all on the lack of cases. It was easy to say he had no ongoing experiments that were worth a visit to St. Bart’s to use the equipment or ask for samples. It was easier to lie to himself, like he’d done for most of his life, swearing up and down that he was a sociopath, a brilliant mind doomed to inhabit a human body that did nothing but get in the way of his peace and content with its needs and cravings and irrational impulses.)

 

“I am seeing Mary tonight,” John said when they stopped on the way for some coffee and, in John’s case, a bite to eat. Sherlock already knew that he would be going out with Mary; he had dressed with care and shaved meticulously before they left in case they did not make it back to Baker Street in time and he had to go straight to her flat from the crime scene. He was also wearing cologne. All those were things he did when he had dates with Mary. “What are you going to do when you get back home?” John asked him

 

“Play,” was all he gave for an answer.

 

“Mary’s got tickets for an art show in a small gallery that opened recently. One of her students’ paintings are on exhibit this week.”

 

He kept on talking while they drank their coffee, but Sherlock did not listen to him. John was used to it and knew he was being ignored, but he did not care that Sherlock did not care about the things he did with the woman he’d been seeing for over four months now. Apparently, John enjoyed talking about Mary whether he was being listened to or not. It had never happened with any of the other women he had dated that Sherlock had known of. This one was different. He was serious about her. He had love on his mind.

 

“Terrible thing that happened, that,” John said with a nod to the wall mounted TV behind the counter. They had a news channel on, and they were showing footage of the railway accident. “I read they say it’s as bad as that one incident in 1952. The Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash.”

 

But Sherlock had stopped listening again. His flatmate’s comment on the railway accident had given him an idea. He interrupted whatever the shorter man was saying and announced:

 

“I think I will go to St. Bart’s.”

 

* * *

 

Sherlock was not going to St. Bart’s because he wanted to see her. His visits to the morgue and the lab were always about his work. The cases. The experiments. He had to go at the end of her shift because Dr. Hooper happened to be the only member of staff that would facilitate him the tissue he needed to conduct an experiment on long term women smokers and osteoporosis he had been interested in doing for quite some time. Based on demographic studies, at least one of the bodies brought into the morgue after the railway accident had to be a long term smoking woman that met the age criteria, and due to the nature of said accident there were high chances she had died from blunt head trauma and fractured some of her facial bones. It was perfect. He’d go to St. Bart’s, ask for what he needed, and then he’d have something to do to distract himself other than play the violin.

 

He had her schedule memorized. He knew when she worked and what hours. He knew when her days off were. All that information was important and worth keeping because he did not enjoy working with anyone else from the morgue staff, and he knew they hated it when he went down there as well. In Sherlock’s experience, people do not tolerate well being told they are not doing right the job they went to school and trained for. Idiots. Dr. Hooper was the exception to the rule, but then he’d never had to tell her she was doing something wrong. She was the best pathologist at St. Bart’s and the only one he worked well with. It was in Sherlock’s best interest to know her schedule as well as he did the map of London.

 

This information was not kept in the same room of his Mind Palace where she lived, of course. He had it filed somewhere else. Somewhere he could easily access and update constantly. He did the same for other people’s schedules and kept them all safe in the same cabinet. So he did not have to see her when he retrieved the information. It mattered little, of course, for he would be seeing the Dr. Hooper sculpted in flesh and bones in a few hours when her shift ended. He would be seeing her, face to face, for the first time since he’d realized she had an eating disorder.

 

He wanted to crawl out of his own skin at the perspective of setting foot there and seeing with his own eyes what he had noticed in the Molly from the Mind Palace.

 

But he had to do this. It was necessary that he proved to himself that she had not altered him completely. He still had control, she had not taken that away from him by merely existing, and taunting him, and tempting him, and now making him question every notion of human emotion he had always believed and lived by. He could not stop taking advantage of the benefits of St. Bart’s lab, morgue and equipment because of Dr. Hooper. He had to push her away, keep limits, set boundaries, teach his body not to react, lock the version of her that inhabited his Mind Palace and throw the key away so he wouldn’t visit her. After all, it was her, the other Molly, the one he fucked. It was her, the other Molly, the one he got hard thinking of. It was her, the other Molly, the one whose cunt he licked and sucked on. It was her, the other Molly, the one he did not have to see ever again.

 

The real Molly, the one with the flesh and bones malnurtured due to an eating disorder -- that was the Molly he had to work with. That was the Molly he would never touch, never fuck, never have. She was unreachable and she had to stay that way. He could not let this, any of this, interfere with his work and what he did, and what he needed the lab and the morgue for.

 

He had to be able to do this. He had to separate one Molly from the other. The real one he’d work with, and not a care about her personal life and whatever she chose to do to herself would trouble him. The Molly in the Mind Palace he would not visit anymore. He would not fuck her, he would not lick her cunt, he would not have her fuck herself on his cock while he instructed her with words.

 

It had to work like that. He had to make it work like that.

 

On his way to St. Bart’s, he gave in and decided to indulge a little and buy a packet of cigarettes. It was either that or walking back to Baker Street to shoot a hole in one of the walls, and he knew which option Mrs. Hudson would prefer. (He also knew which option Mycroft would hate.) He could quit smoking whenever he wanted. It was a rare craving and one he could get rid of quickly once satisfied. It was not like the other drugs. (It was not like Dr. Molly Hooper). He could smoke forty cigarettes today and felt no desire to even smoke a single one the following day.

 

When he got to the hospital, he had already smoked five. It was still not enough. He was coming down from three days of doing nothing but play the violin until he physically hurt himself. He was now excited about the experimentations he would do with the tissue samples he’d gone there to collect. His body had not had any sexual release in several days after getting used to him masturbating twice, sometimes three times as a day since _she_ had taken room in his Mind Palace and refused to leave him alone every time he took his prick in hand.

 

It was half past eight. Her shift had been over for half an hour. He knew she never left right away. She always took some time to clean herself up, perhaps change her clothes if they smelt too strongly of some of the chemicals she used. Dr. Giuliani, a middle-aged blonde woman with a bob haircut, had the night shift. She disliked Sherlock as much as he disliked her and her other colleagues. He avoided being seen by her and went to the small locker room, where he deduced Molly still was.

 

(He did not want to think what it meant, showing up half an hour after her shift ended with nothing but his own deductions of her behaviour to justify he thought she still was there at St. Bart’s. He had left Baker Street with enough time to arrive at the hospital by eight, the time her shift ended. And yet he had walked slower than he could. Did he really want those samples? Was he making himself late on purpose so she would have left by the time he got there? Was he scared of what he’d feel if he saw in the flesh what he’d seen in his Mind Palace the last time he had visited her?)

 

When the door to the locker room opened, he could not help but remember another occasion, several months ago, when he had also found her there. John had been there, too, and she had just been mugged on her way to work. He had acted like the git he was and hurt her even further, making horrible deductions about the emotional value of the items that had been stolen from her. He pushed the memories away. He did not need them now, were not useful to him in the least. He had done the right thing by acting cold and apathetic and behaving in accordance to his diagnosis of heartless sociopath. What had happened to her had not been his business then, and what was happening to her now was not his business either.

 

(What a curious thing the mind of a genius was, though. He was choosing to avoid the fact that he had wanted to take her in his arms and calm her right then and there when he’d seen her after the mugging. He had wanted to shush her and rock her from side to side while he whispered sweet nothings in her ear and promised he’d get back every single thing that had been stolen from her. He was choosing to decide that the dangerous one was the Molly from the Mind Palace, the Molly he fucked and whose cunt he licked and sucked on. The Molly that he had fantasies about. He was choosing to make her the dangerous one, the one that was a figment of his imagination, instead of giving the real Molly the power he deep down inside knew she had over him.

 

All for the sake of his work.

 

All for the sake of the cases.

 

All for the sake of his experiments.)

 

She was there, sitting on the hard bench in front of the lockers, like she had been that morning in May. He stood there for a minute, silent and quiet, just watching her. Observing her. She looked so fragile, so thin. She had lost weight, and he did not want to let his mind work the numbers and deduce exactly how many pounds since he had made those cruel comments when she introduced him and John to ‘Jim from IT’ earlier that year. In the dim lit room and with her back to him, breathing quietly and unaware of his presence, she was like a lonely child hiding in the dark.

 

_Focus_ , a voice that sounded like Mycroft crept in his ear from the Mind Palace. _You came here to collect some samples, brother mine. Use the girl’s kindness, take advantage of it, collect the samples and go._

 

His deep baritone voice startled her when he spoke.

“I need a recently deceased female, age forty five to sixty flve. Preferable cause of death: blunt head trauma. No severe internal organ damage if possible. It would be helpful if the frontal and nasal bones were fractured. If the lungs were those of a long time smoker, that would be preferable, too.”

 

She turned her head quickly to look at him. He stood there under the threshold. He did not react when he saw her face, but it was not from lack of emotion. The circles under her eyes were darker, bigger. She was too pale, too thin. She looked sick and tired, but not from spending the whole day elbows deep into torso after torso working on the victims of a massive accident. It was another kind of sickness. It was another kind of tiredness. And she also looked terribly sad.

 

_I said focus,_ the Mycroft in the Mind Palace reminded him sharply. _You do not care for sentiment. Sentiment is nothing but a chemical defect. Us Holmes brothers do not have such defects, brother mine. You do not have such defect. You are a sociopath. Now behave like one._

And behave like one he did, and not a single emotion showed on his face.

 

“Sh-sh-sh-sh-sherlock. Wh-what a-are y-you d-d-doing here?”

 

The stuttering. He had noticed that the same day they’d met. It was always there when she had to speak to people in social settings, but it was gone the moment the conversation turned to medical, professional issues. She could do well with that and she fumbled over some words or syllables just a little. It became almost imperceptible for the untrained ear when she was in her element, discussing pathology and post mortems and death.

 

He wondered what traumatic event had occurred in her childhood that she had come out of it with a stuttering disorder to show for it . He supposed back then it had been worse, and that she’d worked very hard to correct it and make it disappear. It never did. It never went away. But she had it under control most of the time, except when he was in the room. Except when he talked to her.

 

His presence made her nervous. Little did the young pathologist know, her presence afflicted him in the same way. Even if he denied it and fought it. Even if he ignored it. Even if he would never, ever acknowledge it.

 

What was he doing there, she was asking. He chose to give her the same answer he had given himself earlier when the same question had floated through his mind: the cold, short one. The one that made it look he was there because of his work. His cases. His experiments. Was he not there because of them? Did he have any other reasons to visit St. Bart’s at night other than using the equipment or demanding body parts or tissue samples?  

 

The words came out of his mouth almost mechanically, as if he had rehearsed them. He was not sure he had not.

 

“I need to see the aforementioned body of a recently deceased, long-time smoker female with her frontal and nasal bones fractured and no severely damaged internal organs. She must be no younger than forty five and it would be ideal if she were not older than sixty five,”

 

“I-I-I m-meant t-to a-ask wh-y you a-are here n-now,” she stuttered again.

 

Not a single muscle of his face flinched. He just stood there and stared at the pale young woman from across the locker room. And in the same boring tone he did something that was very rare of him: he offered an explanation.

 

“This afternoon I had a case that was barely a 2, total waste of mine and John’s time. Solved it within the first twenty minutes, spent the rest of the day withholding information from Gaspar and the Yard to see how long it took them to arrive at the conclusion that it had been a domestic incident and not a homicide. Prompted by the need to do something productive and estimating you have already completed a fair share of post mortems for the victims of this morning’s railway accident, I decided to see if you have any subject that meets the criteria for an experiment on long time smoker women and osteosclerosis. Some bone and lung tissue samples will do.”

 

He’d collect the samples she’d give him and then go. It was easy. It was nothing. This was about the work. This was about self-preservation: _his._  He needed cases, he didn’t have cases. He needed distractions. He needed something to do or he’d end up shooting a hole in the wall. He had already bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked five. His fingers were too abused by the seventy two hours he’d spent playing the violin practically without interruption. He needed those samples. He needed the work. He’d get them and go. He had already asked for them and it didn’t have to take her more than ten minutes, twenty minutes top to hand them to him in a container like she always did every time he went to her for body parts and such.

 

“M-my s-shift is over. Dr. Giuliani is in t-the morgue now,” she explained, her stuttering a little bit better than it had been a moment ago when she’d last spoken.

 

Sherlock acknowledged this with a nod of his head and said nothing, but he did not move or make any indications that he would go, either. He stood there, waiting. He knew it did not matter that her shift was over and Dr. Giuliani out there was in charge now. Molly would give him what he wanted. He just had to wait. She would.

 

(He tried not to think of what else he would like her to do for him, with him, to him. He was not there for that. He was not going to his Mind Palace to visit her room ever again because he did not want to want those things. To wish those things.)

 

Eventually she spoke again, her stuttering fully back on:

 

“There was a-a sixt-t-y two years old woman. Her f-facial b-bones were fractured. N-no severe int-t-ernal organ damage, though. But her l-lungs showed signs of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. I can wheel her out f-for you. We can g-get you t-the s-samples you n-need. I-I a-am sure we c-can d-do it without b-b-bothering Dr. Giuliani.”

 

Once more, he chose not to say anything. He simply nodded his head to acknowledge he heard her. As they stepped out the locker room and made their way to the morgue, Sherlock did not utter a word of gratitude to Molly for staying after hours to help him when she’d had every right to say no and leave.

 

He didn't want to risk asking something he shouldn't, saying something he shouldn't. He was more scared of opening his mouth and screwing up royally than he was of silence. In this case, silence he could deal with. He was fine with observing her in silence, not a word from him and not a word from her. In any other situation, with any other person, he wouldn't have engaged or wanted to engage in conversation. What should be different about her? Nothing.

 

(Everything.)

 

Since Dr. Giuliani did not like Sherlock (something that she had in common with half the population in London) Molly made him wait outside while she collected the samples. He agreed to that not because he did not want the young pathologist to get into an argument with the older one after the long, tiring day she had had. He did it because it was not necessary for him to actually see the body the samples were from. Just the samples would do. They along had all the information he needed for the experiment he wanted to try at home.

 

He stayed in the hallway and waited. The pack of cigarettes felt heavy in the pocket of his trousers. He wanted another. He'd have whatever was left in the packet and maybe an entire new packet on the way home if that was what it took to get the look in Molly's exhausted, pale face out of his mind, damn it. He tried not to think about that, about all the other signs he had noticed that spoke of the eating disorder she had. Dr. Molly Hooper was a medical professional (since when were medical professionals saved from illness and ailments?) and a grown woman. She knew what she was doing, the causes and effects, and it was her obligation to herself to ask for help if she wanted help. It had been the same back in the time when he used drugs. He knew what he was doing to his body, it was his choice, his responsibility, and he had ultimately gotten help when he had wanted to, knowing all the while they help was available and where and how to find it.

 

Not caring that he was in a hospital and taking advantage of the lack of a 'no smoking allowed’ sign, he cracked one of the windows open and lit a cigarette. He took in the starless night sky, the cold air, the darkness that swallowed the city he loved more than he considered himself capable of loving a human being. He leaned on the windowsill, a cigarette in his mouth, and on he smoked while he waited for her.

  
“I-I-I t-though you’d quit s-s-smoking, thought y-you used t-the patches n-now.”

 

She was back and had a container with her. The samples were there in their Petri dishes, ready for him to take home and do with them whatever he damn well pleased. He only had to take it, thank her, say goodnight and leave, go back to Baker Street and let his mind find some peace in the work.

 

But he did not move. He kept on smoking in silence without looking at her.

 

“I was in the mood.”

 

He would not say anything else on the matter. He had never liked discussing his habits, good or bad, with anyone. His eyes were focused on the black pitch darkness that engulfed the world outside the building they were in. And then, unexpectedly, he asked:  


“Have you had dinner yet?”

 

It was none of his business whether she ate or not. It was her choice. She could do whatever she wanted. What did he care whether she had eaten something for dinner or not? It wasn't like he had any intention of asking her out for fish and chips. It wasn't like it was interesting to him, knowing her eating habits.

 

“No. Y-you w-were r-right, y-you know,” she said, “eating s-slows one d-down when one’s working. You know, digestion.”

 

It felt like a punch in the stomach.

 

He recalled that night several months ago, when he had gone to see her and ask her to wheel two bodies out for him. She had been in the canteen, it was dinner time. He had recommended she ate pasta instead of pork. When she had asked him what he was having, he'd said he did not eat while on cases because digestion slowed him down. It was true. He did not eat during cases. He did not mind much about food and only ate when strictly necessary to keep his body functioning. He did have a different metabolism in comparison to the rest and could go without eating or sleeping longer than other people. He hadn't meant to tell her she should do the same. It had not been a piece of advice from him to her. It had been a comment on his own habits, his own metabolism.

 

“You have not eaten anything all day?” he asked to make sure he understood right. He still did not look at her.

 

“Y-you d-don’t eat when you’re working either.” Molly pointed out.

 

It felt worse than a punch in the stomach. Worse than a punch in the throat. He did not want to consider what it all meant, he did not want to think of the implications of what she was saying. It was not his problem. He had to avoid that, this, her. He had to take the container with the samples and leave, put distance between the two, delete this information before it nested in his mind and consumed him.

 

He didn't move. He didn't say anything. He did nothing.

 

“H-here a-are t-the s-samples you wanted,” Molly handed the container to him. He took it from her wordlessly and placed it on a wooden bench near where they were standing. But he did not move, and neither did she.

 

Molly stayed there, quiet and in silence while he finished his cigarette. She was waiting to see if he needed anything else, he supposed. He did not want to look at her, did not want to see the dark circles under her eyes again, the sadness and the tiredness.

 

He did not want to see what a comment from him had probably started. He did not want to face it, did not want to see what he had done. He couldn't. He shouldn't care, he was a sociopath, and yet right then and there in that empty, dimly lit hallway he knew that he did.

 

He finished his cigarette and lit another, showing no signs of wanting to leave St. Bart’s any time soon, but he didn’t ask for anything else from her either. His feet were rooted to the spot, and apparently so were hers.

 

“Is there a-a-anything else you need? A-anything else I can assist y-you with?” she asked.

 

He made a sound, some sort of hum, to acknowledge her. But that was it. He did not know if there was anything else he wanted. What could he want? To ask her if she was doing that to herself, starving, because he had said he didn't eat during cases? Because he knew what the signs of starvation were, and he was seeing them all. She was not sick with something else that was causing her to lose weight and look so pale and thin and tired. Did he want to know? Did he have a right to? Could he bear knowing?

 

He kept on smoking and ignored her. Maybe if he continued to look out the window while he puffed the smoke she'd understand he was lost in thought and leave.

 

She broke the silence, determined to engage in conversation with him, the hint that he wanted to be left alone flying past her head.

 

“I’ve n-never s-smoked a cigarette. M-my classmates at c-college d-did all t-the t-time. I-I n-never d-did.”

 

It was not hard to imagine. She was not the type to drink or smoke or do something dangerous or reckless. Always following the rules and doing what was right, that was Molly Hooper. Then why was she depriving her body of the proper nutrition it needed? Why was she doing such a thing to herself? Surely not because of what he had said. No, it couldn't be because of that, there had to be other reasons. Reasons he should not be concerned with. Reasons that were none of his business.

 

_Stop thinking it over. Stop caring. Stop it. Just stop it._

 

He hoped he gave the impression of being lost somewhere inside his mind. He hoped she stopped talking and leave him be before the thought of her eating herself ate _him_.

 

She didn't.

 

She asked him a question.

 

“Can I- Can I-I have o-one?”

 

He did not look at her when he said:

 

“A cigarette? No.”

 

Of course not. He would not give her a cigarette. He would not put one, and her very first cigarette nonetheless, in her hand and light it and what then? maybe teach her how to smoke? No, he would not do that. He would not be responsible for that. He would not add another toxic, bad habit to her life when she had gone about thirty years without trying it. It wasn't like he cared for her health, no. She could do whatever she wanted, and if she wished to take up smoking she surely knew where to buy her own packet and a lighter. He just did not want her the satisfaction to later stand by him and said that she began doing something because he did it. He would not put a single cigarette in her hands.

 

(It didn't help that in that very moment the Molly from the Mind Palace decided to leave her room without his permission to go see him. It didn't help that she was naked, her brown reddish hair disheveled and in a messy bun, her beautiful lips closing around a cigarette the same way they would close around his hard cock.)

 

“Oh, ok.”

 

The next words she said were out of her mouth almost immediately, and they were enough to make all visions of a naked, disheveled-haired smoker Molly go back to the back of his mind as quickly as they had popped up:

 

“If I b-begin s-smoking m-maybe when I’m d-dead you c-can use m-my l-lungs for your experiments.”

 

It was then that he did turn his head and looked at her.

 

The stuttering was there, but she was serious. Those words were serious. He only needed to look at her face to know that she meant every word she said. It was not one of her morbid morgue jokes. It was not morgue humor. She was talking seriously. Those words that had just come out of her mouth- she meant them. She was practically saying that she thought she could be of use to him if she began smoking and died because of it.

 

It was worse, felt worse, than when she had said about him being right, how much better it was not to eat when one was working. The tone, the comment, the look on her pale face...

 

It sucked the air out of him.

 

All of a sudden he felt he could not breathe. He could not think. He could do nothing but stand there and stare at her.

 

He had no idea how long it took him, but at last he regained the ability for coherent speech:

 

“What did you just say?” his tone was dry. Cold. Imperative. He had heard her right, of course. He was just daring her to repeat the words to him while she looked him in the eye.

 

And she did just that.

 

“I-I s-said,” Molly started “t-that if I-I b-begin s-smoking t-then m-maybe once I’m d-dead you c-can have my l-lungs and use t-them f-for your experiments.” She quickly added: “I-I was j-just j-joking.”

 

But he knew better.

 

She was not joking.

 

She had been serious.

 

She truly meant what she had said.

  
He did not say anything. He did not take his eyes off her, either. He was scared he'd not be able to process it all, scared he'd go into buffering mode as John called it when he got deep in thought and separated himself from the world that surrounded him.

 

Sherlock knew he had to leave. He had to take the container and leave, walk away from her before she did something that triggered a reaction he would not be able to control. He had to leave before she said something that triggered a reaction he'd die trying to suppress or live to regret not succeeding in suppressing it.

 

And yet his feet stayed rooted to the spot.

 

“Do not make jokes, Molly.”

 

It was a warning.

 

She did not listen.

 

She laughed nervously and spoke once more without premeditating the weight or the consequences of what she was saying. Or maybe she did. Maybe she knew exactly what she was saying and what it was doing to him, how every single word that passed from her lips to his ears felt like vivisection.

 

“M-maybe you’d f-find me m-more us-useful if I-I d-died in a crash and fractured m-my f-facial b-bones. I-I m-mean, if just m-my l-lungs wouldn’t s-suffice, you c-can have m-my s-skull, too ”

 

That was it.

 

Something snapped inside him.

 

It was as if she had taken all control from him and thrown it away, for his better judgement and all rational thinking seemed to abandon him. And all of a sudden he was responding to a body he had spent years swearing up and down was nothing but transport for his brilliant, gifted intellect. Instinct took over and clouded his mind. For the first time in thirty-six years he stopped thinking and analyzing and processing and, without the stimuli that drugs provided, he acted on pure, raw need and desire. He was consumed by madness, but he was sober this time. (Or was he not? One could argue and say that although he had not shot up or inhaled anything, he was intoxicated by those so called human emotions that he said he was always unaffected by.)

 

His actions could only be described as primal and unpredictable: he grabbed her by both shoulders, threw her up against the wall and pressed his lips to hers.

 

Even in his state of madness he was careful enough to cradle her head with his hands before her frail, thin body made an impact against the wall. He did not want to hurt her, and so he made sure that she wouldn't hit her head before he moved his hand to her face.

 

The world stopped on its axis. It felt as if every second of his life had been worth nothing, absolutely nothing compared to this moment. No drug, no case, no experiment, nothing had made him feel like her lips on his did.

 

Nothing could have prepared him for the overwhelming stimuli that assaulted his every sense. Sight, taste, smell, touch and hearing were overloaded. It didn't matter that the kiss was simple, chaste even: it felt like he was handing over all control and putting himself at the mercy of his need to see, taste, smell, touch and hear. Sensorial experiences were always so intense for him, ever since he’d been a child. Maybe that was why he got cravings so easily when something was pleasurable and exciting. Maybe that was why he constantly sought sources of calmness, things that brought, from time to time, peace of mind.

 

He wouldn't understand it until later, but he kissed her to shut her up. This young woman that was clearly not taking care of herself properly, starving herself probably, had looked him in the eye and joked about being useful to him only as a corpse.

 

He had had to make her stop. He had had to shut her up.

 

It had finally happened.

 

He had succumbed to the pressure.

 

He had lost control.

 

And so there he was, not caring that oxygen was beginning to run low. There he was, kissing her, holding her pale, cold but soft face in his calloused, raw hands that hurt after days of abuse playing the violin at all hours.

 

Her body was trapped between the wall and his. He wished he could get closer to her, and found himself wanting, _needing_ to hold her in his arms and promise her that the reasons why she was doing this to herself would go away. That he would make them all go away. That he was sorry he had said to her something that could have planted the seed from which such somber idea germinated.

 

Sherlock did not do that, though. He brought her face to smash against his and chewed on her lower lip, not minding if it was painful to her. She moaned softly when he bit her, though, and that sound was enough to break the spell. It was a noise that indicated nothing but pleasure, but it was enough to remind him where he was, who he was with and what he was doing.

 

This was madness.

 

It had to stop.

 

He had to stop.

 

He had to take control back.

 

They broke apart. He looked at her, her hair disheveled where he had run his hands, her eyes half closed. She was shaking like a leaf. Her hands were on his face, and he felt the skin under them burning. For a second he thought of kissing her again, crashing his lips on her once more, give himself another taste of that wonderful, pleasurable thrill. But he couldn't. He shouldn't. He had to leave while he still could. He had to push her away like he had planned to from the very second they met.

 

It was a mistake, kissing her. He had broken the rules he had thought of in order to protect himself from the things she made her feel and that were so foreign to him and at the same time felt so… familiar.

 

Why couldn't he just tell her to shut up if he wanted her to do so? Why couldn't he just walk away? Why was so important to him that she stopped talking about her death and that his lips were responsible for silencing the words coming out from hers?   


He had to leave.

 

Now.

 

And he couldn't do so without making perfectly clear that this thing that had happened between them, this reaction that had prompted him to kiss her, was a mistake that he would not be making twice. He had to make sure that she knew not to expect anything else from him, ever again, and to not be surprised or confused when he built up an invisible wall of steel between them to keep her out and away like he had done so far. Like he had done until a few minutes ago when her words about the uses he could find to her hypothetical death destroyed that wall and made it come crumbling down, brick by brick.

 

He had to do what he did best when it came to people: hurt them, push them away, show them he was a bastard, a sociopath, and that he was incapable of feelings.

 

(But then why did he feel like his chest was about to explore? Why did he feel like he could not breathe? Why did he _feel_?)

 

He took her hands off where they had been grabbing his face, and arranged them at her sides as if she were a doll. Molly looked up at him with her doe-like eyes. Whatever she was expecting from him, if it was something good she would not get it.

 

He spoke before she could regain the ability for coherent speech.  
  
“Thank you for your help with this one experiment in particular, Dr. Hooper.”   


Nothing but an experiment. She had to believe it had been nothing but that. He hoped that in his cold expression she could see that he meant it (he didn't) and that to him this had not been but an experiment. A diversion. A distraction. Some sort of punishment for making those morbid, cruel jokes about herself when she was sick and knew that he could probably see that.

 

And perhaps it was. Perhaps it was a form of punishment.

 

(But who was he punishing? Her or himself? Maybe both.)

 

It was better if she believed him to be what everyone else thought he was: a cruel, insensitive bastard. Someone that would push a woman up against the wall and kiss her breathless and then call it an experiment.

 

He turned around, took the container with the samples she’d collected for him, and left Molly standing there, in a semi-dark empty hallway right outside the morgue, bruises already forming on her lips from the force with he had kissed her.  
  
His heart was beating fast and hard, throbbing against his ribs. His lips were swollen and hurt, and he wondered if he would ever be able to wash away the taste of her. He wondered if he wanted to, and he guessed that he didn't because the moment he set foot on the street and began walking back to Baker Street he took a cigarette out of the packet in his pocket but did not light it. He was desperate for something, anything that could give him back peace and control, and yet he did not take the small comfort that smoking would have given her.

 

As he walked in a city he could draw from memory in the air, a city he knew better than perhaps he did himself, the only thing the world's only consulting detective could hear was the _took took took_ of his heart. And then, a voice that did not come from his Mind Palace and did not sound like anyone's but his very own.

 

_What the bloody hell have you done, Sherlock Holmes?_

 

* * *

 

The rest of the way to Baker Street from St. Bart’s was totally deleted from his mind. His body moved, but he was on buffering mode. He did not light a cigarette, and without even realizing that he was doing so he threw the packet in a trash bin a couple of blocks before he reached his destination. He’d have to go back to the nicotine patches the following day. He did not care. He would not even think about it until he felt the need to smoke. (So much for believing himself to have the power to stop whenever he wanted.)

 

Mrs. Hudson was asleep when he arrived -- she had already taken her herbal soothers. John wasn’t back from his date with Mary, either. Sherlock was alone. He preferred that way. He’d have time and peace to work on his experiments. That would take his mind off things. That would wash away the feeling of Molly Hooper’s lips on his, her taste, her smell, how small and frail she had felt when he’d cradled her head in his hands and held her close to him with such force he wondered if he’d left a mark. He wondered how he had been able to let go at all.

 

But he didn’t have to think of that. No. He had the samples he needed. He had an experiment to do. Work to focus on. Things to keep his mind stimulated. Things other than Molly Hooper.

 

Molly Hooper and whatever it was she was doing to herself.

 

Molly Hooper and whatever it was he had done to her.

 

( _“You have not eaten anything all day?”_

 

_“Y-you d-don’t eat when you’re working either.” )_

 

He took the Petri dishes out the container. Everything was exactly the way he liked it. The way she knew he liked it. That was why it was so important that he was able to keep working with her.

 

She was perfect.

 

She was his pathologist.

 

No one else would do.

 

And now he had gone and thrown it all away, damned it all to hell, by acting on impulse, by letting the reactions and needs of his body cloud his judgement. She had made him crumble, her words and the look on her face and her doe-like eyes, everything she was right then and there in that hallway had corrupted him in a way he had only let a few things do. He may as well have been shooting up the moment he kissed her.

 

She was fucking with his head. She was fucking with him, and not in the way he’d imagined in his Mind Palace. That was what she was doing, she was fucking with his balance, with his stability. She was endangering his equilibrium. He had tried to stay away, tried to push her, and yet she had succeeded in making him lose control, if only briefly. But sometimes a brief loss of control is all it takes for everything to come crumbling down.

 

He had tried to put a barrier between them so she wouldn’t get closer because he was scared of the effect she had on him. He was scared of wanting her. He was scared of that petite woman being the kind of person that could alter the perception he had of himself and how his whole being worked. And he did not want. He did not feel. Emotions were wrong, they numbed you, they changed you. And he was terrified of change. He was terrified of emotions. Illogical, right? How could he be so scared of something he was supposed to be unable to experience given his sociopathic condition?

 

But if he was a sociopath, if he didn’t care, why did it hurt so fucking much that she was doing _that_ to herself? Why did it feel like a punch in the stomach and throat to hear her talk about herself as if she were no better being alive than she would be laying on a slab? Why did it feel like she had the upper hand in playing him into losing control? Why did he feel threatened by her?

 

He had gone to St. Bart’s that day because he wanted to see her, but he would never admit that to himself. He made up lies, excuses, instead. It was all about the work. It was all about the cases and the experiments and what he wanted and what he needed. He had tried to exert his control on the situation, show his power, by demanding samples he did not care so much about to begin with. He’d make her stay after hours and cater to his whimpers like he always did because he wanted to prove to himself that yes, he could do this, he could be cold, he could see her as someone to take advantage of because she was kind, and nice, and she did not hate him like the rest of the morgue staff. He had tried to prove that he could work with her, use her, demand things from her, all the time being unaffected by whatever was going on in her life, whatever she was choosing to do to herself for God knew what reasons.

 

It all turned out spectacularly wrong, though.

 

All of the contradictions in his life that he did not care enough about to notice, blinded as he was by the emotions he did not want to recognize as such, kissing her was the most torturing one. He had crashed into her, sucked the air out of her, and, paradoxically, he had never felt more vulnerable than when he had her up against a wall and shut her up with his mouth. But the moment it was over, he came apart, his biggest fear (emotions) gripped him by the throat, and invisible hand threatening to cut his breath short in a way that was not good at all.

 

He stood there, by the kitchen counter, the Petri dishes out of the container completely forgotten. Untouched. He didn’t move. He did nothing. He stood there, silent and quiet, lost inside his mind, running away from the feelings that were trying to catch up with him, knock him down and force him to face what he had done, what had happened. What he was doing. What was happening.

 

Some time later, Sherlock did not know exactly how much time had passed, he snapped out of it when he heard urgent, almost violent knocks on the door.

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

Her mother wanted to name her Catherine. During those first months of pregnancy, that was what the Hoopers told all of their friends and acquaintances: _Bernard for a boy, Catherine for a girl._ But they changed their mind a week before the birth, when an elderly aunt from her father’s side passed away. The Hoopers were incredibly sad, for the old woman was very dear to them both. They decided that if they had a baby girl they would call her Margaret to honour the memory of the great-aunt their child would never get to know. And so in the last days of her intrauterine life began Molly Hooper’s connection to the dead: she was named after one.

 

As a toddler, she showed some speech difficulties, even before the first signs of her stammering disorder appeared. She had trouble with her R’s, both soft and hard. She overcame that with help and time, but by then she was more used to and more familiar with ‘Molly’, the pet name her parents called her and that she had actually been able to pronounce correctly since the early stages of development. Mr. and Mrs. Hooper began to call her Margaret affectionately instead. Now that they both were gone, she was hardly ever addressed by her given name.

 

She had always liked Catherine better than Margaret or Molly. She had liked practically any name better than Margaret or Molly. But of course, when had she liked anything of hers? Throughout her childhood, most of her belongings -clothes and toys- had been second hand and, in the case of books, borrowed from the school library. Why did her name have to be any different? It too belonged to someone else before it was given to her, passed down like a sundress another little girl had outgrown.

 

Molly knew her parents had struggled to make ends meet, and that her needs had always been their number one priority. She was thankful for her efforts and never, not even once, resented them for the charity shop clothes and toys or the fact that she had the same school supplies three or four years in a row. She had always been careful with everything they gave her, for she knew how much it had costed and how hard they had worked for her to have it. But if there was one thing she wished, it was that they would have given her a name that was her own. It was silly, for there had been, were, and would be thousands and thousands of women named Catherine in the world, as there were women named Margaret or Molly. But it would have been a name specially chosen for her, not to honour and celebrate the life of someone else. As a child, it had always felt heavy in her heart, the fact that she bore the name of a deceased member of the family. Had her parents thought the ending of a life was more important than the beginning of another? (Sometimes she wondered if it had influenced the career path she chose.)

 

She had let herself into the building next to Speedy’s Sandwich Bar & Café uninvited using the secret spare key John had placed under the doormat without his flatmate’s knowledge or consent. She knew it was there because he had mentioned it casually over tea that one time. And on that cold November night, as she reached the door to 221B and knocked on it with an urgency that spoke of how utterly frustrated, sad and alone she felt, Dr. Molly Hooper remembered the lyrics to an old song from the seventies she had always found both enchanting and intriguing: _Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy, I’ve come home, I’m so cold, let me in through your window._

 

At ten years old, she had not known who Heathcliff and Cathy were. But she had guessed they were both people that cared for one another but that were at odds for some reason -- after all, she was locked outside in what Molly imagined to be a very cold, wintery night, asking to be let in through the window of this man she associated with ‘home’. The song also said he was temperamental and greedy, that the woman was jealous, that she both loved and hated him, and that he'd left her when she needed him most. She called him cruel, and yet she confessed to him being her only dream, masochist as it sounded.

 

(Molly Hooper knew what a masochist was at the age of ten. She knew a lot of words because she liked to read. That one was advanced even for someone as gifted as she was, and her father had been mortified when he heard her use it in a sentence. He would have been even more mortified if he had lived to see her daughter become a masochist herself.)

 

At fifteen she read _Wuthering Heights_ and learned who Heathcliff and Catherine were, and that in their twisted, unhealthy way they had adored each other with so much intensity that they had made the other sick both mentally and physically. By pushing away the person that mattered most, they had succumbed to hatred, and resentment, and ultimately madness. A love affair that could have been but never was, cut before time and left to bleed dry, it broke in half the soul of a woman that even in death could not stand being separated from her one true dream. And tormented by her absence and the memories, he let himself bleed dry, too.

 

She never thought she would experience a love like the one Emily Brontë imagined and wrote about, so powerful and intense it burns you and changes you and makes you morph into something, someone, you would not recognize if seen by another’s perspective. And yet there she was, shaking like a leaf, dressed with whatever clothes she had managed to find in the midst of her frantic decision to venture out in the streets again, hail a cab and go to his home. There she was, knocking on his door with what could only be described as violence, wanting to be let inside so she could show him, so she could fucking show him, that even though she adored him and would give him her bloody heart right out of her bleeding chest if he asked her to, she would not give him her so hard-earned control.

 

It was hers, maybe it was the only thing that was completely hers, and no one else could have it. Not even him. Everything else it was his to take, she’d give it willingly. But not this.

 

(She should have been called Catherine indeed, Molly considered briefly, as she shivered at the door. True, she was not coming home. He’d never want to be home to her. He’d never want to be anything to her. But like Catherine, she’d fallen in some sick kind of obsession with a cruel, heartless man that haunted her, and there she was, knocking on his door madly, like an aspiring gothic heroine. But one thing was certain: Catherine never let the object of that obsession control her. Oh, no, he never controlled her, she made fucking sure of that.

 

And so would Molly.)

 

He opened the door and they stared at each other for a full minute. He felt off balance when he saw her, breathless even, as he had on the day of their first meeting. She had her damp hair up in a careless bun, chunks of it were sticking out of it. The circles under her eyes were darker than ever, and she had never looked smaller in her oversized clothes. She resembled what he had treated her as: a ragdoll.

 

Used by him, abused by herself.

 

In that moment he hated himself for his stupid loss of control and what he had done to her. And he felt small, smaller than she was maybe, and weak. He hated himself for allowing her to become an all-consuming weakness, too.

 

For one second, he wished he had it in himself to gather her in his arms, hold her, ask for forgiveness and rock her to sleep. He wished he could allow himself to be like the others and give into what he wanted with every inch of the flesh and bones he considered mere transport for his mind. He wished he could just shut off and, shut it up, make it all go quiet and dark, comforting and silent, press her body to his and inhale deeply and drink her in.

 

Drink her all in.

 

It struck him like lightning, how familiar the symptoms were. He realized what it was that he wanted and needed so desperately it ached.

 

It was a craving.

 

He wanted a fix.

 

He needed to shoot up.

 

But he did not care for cocaine or heroine at the moment, although he would have taken them as poor substitutes it offered.

 

No.

 

He was craving _her._

 

He was craving Molly Hooper.

 

And she was there, standing right in front of him, looking beautiful in her distress and in spite of her tear-stained face. The bruises on her lips where he had kissed her too  forcefully only made them more tempting, more exquisite. And because she had the capability to make him _want_ , and _care_ , and _fear,_ and be receptive of all those things sociopaths were not supposed to be receptive of, he was terrified of what could happen if she had gone there to offer him exactly that: a fix.

 

But she wasn’t.

 

“Give me the samples.”

 

She did not stutter. For their first time in the history of their acquaintance, she addressed him without stammering once. They both noticed it, and while it made him crave more of what he knew he could not have, it gave her courage and confidence.

 

When he failed to do anything --move, speak, even blink-- she repeated herself, sounding calmer than she felt but just as firm, only the muscles in her face moving as her lips and mouth did:

 

“Give me the samples.”

 

He had taken something from her, now she’d take something from him. It was only fair. She did not know where all the confidence was coming from, but she was thankful for it - encouraged by it, even. If what she had given him willingly was still not enough for him, if he still wanted more and was determined to take it by force like he had when he kissed her ‘for an experiment’, then she’d rather he had nothing. She had nothing as well after all, right? He had not given her anything. He only took. He always took. Well, it was time she took, too. And so she was taking back the samples.

 

He was still unmoving, perhaps in what she had often heard John Watson refer to as ‘buffering mode’. It had happened in her presence some times, especially if he’d been working a difficult case and made an unexpected breakthrough in the middle of an experiment in the lab or while examining a body in the morgue. She did not know whether he was processing what she was saying, if she had caught him in the middle of a visit to his Mind Palace and he was not even listening to a word from her, but she did not care. She would not leave until she was heard. She was tired of standing aside, voiceless, the look in her eyes offering him absolutely everything she had to give ( _everything_ but control) only for him to decide that he’d take that one thing she wants to be hers and no one else’s.

 

“Sherlock, give me the samples,” she repeated a third time, a little louder. A little angrier.

 

Molly saw the moment he snapped out of it and was infuriated by the calm with which his eyes spoke to her, as if he were oblivious to her pain, her anger, her feelings. As if he were oblivious to her. And what gave her the right to assume it would be any different than what it always was, what it’d always been? He had always acted as if she did not matter. She had never counted, she had always meant nothing. She had always been a means to an end, a tool, maybe even less important than the valuable laboratory equipment at St. Bart’s.

 

How many nights had she spent crying over the fact that he did not care for her? How many nights had she laid unable to fall asleep, eyes fixed on the ceiling, the fear of never being noticed by him eating away at her? It was as if her body had been rendered unable to deal with any more sadness, and all that there was now as a reaction to the kiss and the way he’d behaved afterwards were anger and bitterness. There was pain, of course. But she was not sad, she was not looking up at him with eyes full of tears. She was not begging, she was not there to implore.

 

She was demanding he gave her the samples.

 

He saw all of that. The anger. The bitterness. The pain. He saw it clearly, and he cursed himself for allowing himself to do so, for letting her tear down the walls and make him vulnerable, almost like a functioning, normal human. Almost like someone that was not a sociopath.

 

It was the pent-up emotions he heard in her voice and saw in her expression that made him react. And yet he did nothing. He just stood there, looking at her, seeing all that bitterness and anger he would have never associated with sweet, young Dr. Molly Hooper, and that he was responsible for. He had done that. He had awakened that in her, turned her into this person that weighed less than what was healthy and showed up unannounced at his door in the middle of the night, fed up and determined to give to him what he’d had coming for a long time.

 

All because he had been unable to keep things in a certain way, with him as far away from her as possible, and all the walls strategically built around his mind standing tall and strong to keep her out. He had let her in -- more than that, he had _consumed_ her, and in doing so not only had he poisoned himself to the point of wanting another dose: he had also poisoned her to the point of turning her into this somber person that seemed to have lost all patience and control when it came to tolerating him.

 

She got tired of waiting on a response for him, tired of waiting for him to acknowledge that she was there, that she was speaking to him, that she was asking something. ( _And why should he pay attention to you, Molly? Why should he acknowledge you? Why should he invite you in? Simply because you’ve shown up? Simply because you’re making demands? No one ever cared about you, Molly. He never cared about you, he won’t start now simply because you’re openly upset with him. And about what? Treating you like the disposable garbage bag you know you’ve always been, dear!)_ Most of all, she was just tired. The surge of energy she’d experienced when she decided to dress, leave her apartment and hail a cab to Baker Street seemed to be abandoning her, and she wanted to have it all over with before the headache got stronger and her legs started trembling like they did when she got dizzy.  

 

“If you don’t give them to me, I’ll get them myself.”

 

That being said, and with a renewed energy and attitude that felt almost foreign in her body, she stepped over the threshold and let herself into 221B without his permission.

 

And he let her.

 

He let her in, as easy as he had let her into the sanctuary of his mind, into his thoughts and  fantasies, and now into his system.  He did nothing to stop her from invading his home, for what was the use? He had tried to keep her from walking all over everything else, had consciously pushed her away, hurt, humiliated and avoided her, and she had won anyway.  He was the weaker one, as Mycroft always made sure to tell him. Why did he ever think he’d be able to treat Molly Hooper like everyone else, keep himself from falling prey to the weakness she represented, when his mind and body associated her with the same drugs he hadn’t been at all lucky enough to say no to?

 

He had opened up the door to heroin and cocaine once. He knew now if it hadn’t been those drugs, then it would have been something else. He had gone to rehab and never touched them again after the last time, but it did not mean that he was rid of his addictive personality and his self-destructive tendencies. Otherwise, he would not have become obsessed with her. He would not have found excuses to go to St. Bart’s to ask for the same tissues she intended to take from him now. He would not have kissed her earlier that night if he had any control whatsoever. He would have known better than to care about what she did to her body, and whether or not comments made by him about his eating habits had been the trigger for her self-harmful behaviour.

 

But he did care. Hadn’t her comments about dying been his very own trigger when he kissed her? Was not the fear of hurting her further what kept him from saying something, anything, as she took the container from the kitchen counter? He’d let her take it, of course. He did not care one iota about those samples, they had been but an excuse to go see her after days of endless torture. Stupid decision, he knew that now. It would have been better to stay at home and bleed himself playing the violin while he tried to push away every single thought about her and her current condition. It would have been better to shoot a hole in the wall, or shoot up with drugs, or simply shoot himself in the head to make it all go, finally, quiet.

 

The problem was he cared. He cared enough not to move a muscle and upset her further. He cared enough to let her take the fucking container and make him eat the bone and lung tissue if she wished so. He cared for her more than he had ever allowed himself to care for anyone or anything, and it was maddening and frustrating because it had not been his choice. He would have never chosen this. He would have never chosen her. He would have never wanted to care, to want, to need, the way he cared for her, wanted her, needed this petite woman.

 

“You do not care about these samples, so I don't care whether you have them or not,” she said in a voice that did not sound as her own and without a trace of her stammering. Her hands were shaking when she opened the container and emptied the contents of the Petri dishes in the sink as if they were leftover rice and beans and not tissue from a body that had been functioning, and breathing, and perfectly fine less than twenty four hours before. Those were her hands she was seeing shake, and yet they didn't feel like her own. It was as if she was not even inside her body anymore, and it felt wonderful, because it meant she could do and say to him things she would have otherwise kept bottled up, allowing them to eat her from the inside out, soul first and then her flesh and bones.

 

Once the words started coming out of her mouth, it felt almost as good as vomiting. And, just like it was with purging herself by vomiting whatever food she ingested, once it began she could not bring herself to stop.

 

“You do not care about these samples,” she repeated, not caring if he was listening or not. “You just don't. You do not want them. You just asked for them to taste how much and for how long I can put up with you. Well,” she turned around, away from the sink, and found he had followed her into the kitchen, his expression totally blank “I guess this is where I draw the line,” she added. She opened the faucet and let the water wash the samples down the drain.

 

She liked this, she realized. It felt wonderfully pleasurable and refreshing to talk to him like that, to finally be able to say all those things without stammering or choking on her own words. She did not understand where this new found attitude was coming from, but she supposed that perhaps it was the anger and the frustration fueling her. Just like sadness and stress had pushed her to discover the beautiful release that washed over her body every time she vomited, perhaps these emotions had been the key to unlock all of what she’d been repressing, keeping hidden deep down, rotting in the pitch of her stomach and making her sick.

 

The anger coursing through her veins, the frustration, the madness swirling in her head and quieting all thoughts that had nothing to do with being crossed at him. She liked how she sounded right then, and how the more she talked and let it all out the more she felt as if she were watching everything from a distance, as if she were not inside her trembling body. As if she were just someone experiencing it all from the outside -- an observer. It felt delightful, and in that moment she could have sworn that she weighed nothing at all, for the intensity of it all numbed her.

 

His silence, his blank expression - it made her angrier. Was he mocking her? What did he think he was proving by standing there a foot away from her, clearly listening to her spitting out all the poison but saying nothing in return? That he was able to maintain all control while she lost it? That, unlike her, he was unaffected by all this? That it meant nothing, because she meant nothing, and that he could not afford to even blink or move a muscle of his fucking gorgeous face to even acknowledge that she was being yelled at? Was this Sherlock’s way of stating that the control was all his? That he enjoyed watching Molly lose hers because of him?

 

“I bet you knew what a tiring day I had, uh? Did you deduce it when you saw me or did you already know it when you decided to go to the morgue?” Words were coming out of her mouth more quickly than ever before in her life. “Did you want to have fun making me stay after hours to cater to your needs? Did you want to show me I’m only  a puppet on a string you can pull?”

 

He was still unresponsive, and without a doubt he was doing that to just upset her further. The bastard! She should just turn around and leave, hail another cab and go back home. She had already destroyed the samples. He did not want them, of course, so he would not be sorry that they’d ended up in the sink. But at least she had stood up to him, right? She hadn’t stayed at home, laying in bed and prey of insomnia, while he had a good laugh at her expense and rejoiced in knowing just how easy it was to belittle Mousy Molly. She had not let him walk all over her to then hide in a corner and to try to nurse her abused heart. It was enough for now. It was a start. She had done what she’d set her mind on, and there was nothing else she could do. She should just leave.

 

She didn’t.

 

She was greedy. She now had a taste of what it was like to tell him off, but was not satisfied with it. Just like it happened when she discovered the release that vomitting provided, she wanted more. It was as if the angrier she got, the better the high.

 

She truly was a masochist.

 

“Are you going to stay there and say nothing?” she provoked him, half wishing he’d remain unresponsive so she could feed off the negative emotions and not lose this quasi-euphoric state. “You want this, right? You want to make me mad. You want me to lose control. You’re trying to do my head in, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

 

She was becoming more and more agitated with each word she spoke, and could feel her heart beating violently against her thin ribcage. It hurt, but the pain felt exquisite and compelled her to keep purging herself with words that were not written in secret in a blog nobody she knew knew about, but directly said to the man whose mind games haunted and tortured her.

 

The man that thrived on making her lose control to show her how he was better than her, more perfect, and completely unreachable for someone as insignificant and flawed as she was. Molly had already embarked on an experiment on her own body because of him, and even if it had turned out to be something that brought her close to a sense of completion, satisfaction, pleasure and perfection, the truth would always be that she had first tried because of him.

 

He truly had it in for her, didn’t he? He had truly been trying to do her head in.

 

“You want that, don’t you?” She laughed bitterly, and it reverberated in the otherwise silent kitchen. “Do you want to do my head in, Sherlock?

 

But he said nothing. He did nothing. No human emotions ever affected him, so why should hers be any different? Or worse: what if he was so cruel, so heartless, that he had intentionally planned this? What if he had somehow deduced that she’d react like this? (After all, once or twice he had commented on her being, as all boring people were, terribly predictable in her actions.) What if he had known she would react like this? What if _his_ experiment still continued and she was giving him the satisfaction of crawling to his door to fall apart in front of his cold, expressionless eyes?

 

Molly felt very tired all of a sudden, and the tears she thought she had no strength left to cry started to cloud her vision. So much for thinking she was physically past crying over him. So much for believing this anger to be empowering, a weapon of sorts to stand up to him and make him see that control was hers, and that that was the only thing she was not giving up.

 

Well, if he had planned this then it couldn’t have turned out more perfect for him. And if he hadn’t planned it, well, she had dug her own grave, hadn’t she?

 

She just wished she knew what the fuck he wanted from her so she could fucking become it once and for all. And upon realizing that, she also understood that the satisfaction of telling him off without stammering once was nothing but empty, temporary relief. It didn’t matter that she went there, knocked on his door until he let her in, and then let it all out. Because come morning she’d still want him, she’d still want to be what he wanted her to be (whatever the fuck that was, only God knew.) Come morning she’d still want to please him, and be liked by him, and wanted by him, and loved by him.

 

And come morning she’d still have no idea what to do to finally make it happen, and the only source of content in her life would be, once again, her experiment.

 

It would all be so much easier if he just told her what the fuck he expected from her, what he wanted from her, if he wanted anything at all. Did he even have the ability to want? Or was he beyond that? (Or was _it_ beyond _him_?)

 

Maybe it would if it was _her_ who felt nothing at all…

 

Anger rising up inside her again, she let her loss of control go even further. Her vision blurred by the tears and her sense of self completely numbed, Molly closed the gap between them, grabbed the soft fabric of the black shirt he was wearing with one hand to keep him from walking away, and with the open palm of her other hand hit him repeatedly in the chest as she asked between desperate, now uncontrollable sobs:

 

“Tell me what it is you want!”

 

He’d tried to shut off while she went on and on about what a prick he was, and how he used her. How he always used her. He tried not to give away how it made him feel to have her there, so close to him, trembling body and shaky hands. He tried not to let it show that she had the ability to make him want, and crave, and need, and _feel_. He hid his feelings, because that was what he was used to in the rare occasions he had them - and no occasions had ever been as rare, as raw, as the ones that had to do with her. He let her tell him to his face what a horrible person he was, and he managed to do so without displaying an ounce of human emotion. He was good at that. It was his field of expertise, even more than the science of deduction.

 

(He followed her to the kitchen when she went there to dispose of the samples in the Petri dishes. He went in there and let her keep on screaming and saying everything she had had stuck in her throat for only God knew how long.

 

He believed she deserved the chance to tell him off, perhaps?

 

Maybe he was not only a sociopath. Maybe he was a masochist, too.)

 

But it was one thing to be yelled at by her. That he could deal with. That was easy to endure. He could will himself not to react visibly to her harsh words. The anger in her voice was almost palpable, but he could survive that. He could pretend not to be affected, even when he was. Deeply. He had done it countless of times before, he could do it again now. The moment he had heard the knocks on the door he had decided not to let her affect him, no matter what she did or said, not like she had at the morgue with all those things about her being dead…

 

Being called a bastard, he could stand that. He had been called a bastard so many times throughout the years, it was nothing new. Everyone thought he was one, after all, and he did nothing to change their minds (he was not interested in their minds changing, either - their minds were boring, and uninteresting, and he was not one to please others.) Cruel, colorful words, accusations - all of that he was used to as well. Nothing new there, either. And the cravings he supposed he could live through - he’d done it before, he’d gone off cocaine and heroine, he could go survive his need for Molly Hooper.

 

The mistake he made when he kissed her - it could not happen again.

 

He was more than his desires and impulses. His intelligence outweighed his instinct. He always missed something, it was a flaw he still had not perfected into a strength, but once he spotted it he made sure not to miss it a second time.

 

Everything he could control with his mind, he would. He had not been able to control the reactions to Molly's words and sick appearance at Bart's. But he would be able to restrain himself from making any mistakes now. He would not show what her presence at Baker Street did to him, neither would he succumb to the (surprisingly fluid) speech she had gone there to deliver.

 

He did miss something again, though.

 

He stood no chance against her touch.

 

“Tell me what it is you want!”

 

Her touch made him crumble. All his willpower and resolution fell apart the moment she attacked him. In all of his life, and after all the experimentation he had done, nothing had felt as intense as one of her hands grabbing him by the shirt while the other hit his chest. Even if it was violent, unhealthy behaviour, her skin touching him through the fabric of his clothes shut down his reasoning and robbed him of any control he believed he had.

 

Apparently, all it took to make Sherlock Holmes surrender to his body was Molly Hooper’s touch. And so the world's only consultant detective gave in to a craving greater and stronger than any other.

 

For the second time that night, he kissed her hungrily. His long fingers full of blisters and cuts closed around her thin, bony wrist, and with his other calloused hand he grabbed her by the back of her head to push her flat against him as his lips crashed on hers. Unable to shut himself down, he shut her up.

 

It was more intense than the first time. Tears were streaming down her face and she was a trembling mess, but she responded to the kiss with the same hunger, the same anger. The same need. It was as if she craved him, too. As if she too had been fighting the need to chase that beautiful high, almost impossible to describe.

 

Molly's hands cradled his head full of curls and pushed him down to meet her mouth at a better angle. She was still crying, and he hated himself for that. He hated himself for how light and thin she felt, too. He hated himself for letting it happen again. And he hated himself even more for wanting to never, ever stop.

 

Eyes closed and feeding off euphoria, he solved the height difference by lifting her up (she was too thin, too light) and sitting her on the edge of the counter. He stood between the V of her legs, his groin pressed on her tight. She offered no resistance to this, and she never let go.

 

They barely stopped for air a few seconds, and even then all they did was just breathe into the other’s mouth before resuming whatever madness all that kissing and biting and nibbling meant. With Molly practically hanging on the edge of the counter, he could also stop worrying about her coming apart in his arms for lack of oxygen. It was worrisome, how much she shivered under his touch, how fragile she felt, even more fragile than she looked.

 

The only sounds that could be heard in 221B Baker Street were the desperate clashing of mouths, his lips biting hers on the same places he'd bruised the first time, their elaborate breathing patterns.

 

He was half hard and rubbing his clothed erection on one of her legs. He was out of control, more so than he'd been previously, and she was doing nothing to stop him or themselves. She just kept kissing him and tugging at his hair as if her life depended on it, and a part of him was terrified that it did.

 

(A part of him was terrified that his life would end up depending on kissing her, and he was oh so thankful that this high was numbing those thoughts for the moment, for when he did go back to them and analyzed them he'd probably get more scared.)

 

Rubbing himself on her was only turning him on more, and it was not even a conscious action. It was primal. It was instinct. He had no control whatsoever. For the second time that night, she had won. She had taken control from him and rendered him a mess. The little noises escaping her mouth, the feel of her nails scratching the skin on the back of his head - he was sure he would go crazy.

 

He was also sure he'd be unable to stop unless she asked him to. And that was more terrifying than anything.

 

He was about to thrust his tongue into her mouth when he heard someone call his name.

 

“Sherlock!”

 

They broke apart immediately, a jolt of electricity cutting his body in two from the inside the moment he let go of her. Hair disheveled, their faces a wet mess because of Molly's tears (that Sherlock's hands were also damped with) and out of breath, they found John Watson standing at the kitchen door with his mouth hanging in disbelief. And a young woman with short blonde hair was standing right next to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am deeply disappointed in myself over this chapter. I hope to see some improvement in my writing in the following ones. I am sorry to have kept you waiting on this one, and I am even more sorry if I disappointed you too.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder, self-harm and dubious consent.

Molly Hooper’s head was spinning, and if it hadn't been for the firm grip Sherlock Holmes had on her she would have lost her balance and fainted.

 

For the second time that night he had silenced her with his kiss. His mouth on hers was a beautiful, bittersweet analogy of the way Sherlock Holmes considered things to be between them: if she dared speak up he had the right to ignore her, belittle her or shut her up. Doing so by sealing her lips with his seemed to be the ultimate mechanism.

 

And she let him. God help her, she let him. One minute she was being consumed by the anger he'd awakened, determined to get the answers to the questions that were heavy in her heart ( _Tell me what it is you want_ ) and the next she was being consumed by him. Thrown around like a ragdoll, manhandled by this man that was so frustrating, so infuriating. Picked up in his arms as if she were nothing, sat on the kitchen counter and kissed breathless, all need for oxygen forgotten, all of her demands diluted by the taste and softness of his lush mouth.

 

She loved it, every minute of it.

 

(She loved him.)

 

Molly Hooper truly was a masochist when it came to Sherlock Holmes.

 

In the same way the experiment was her preferred way to bring herself relief and pleasure, Sherlock Holmes was her weapon of choice to inflict physical and psychical wounds on herself.

 

If her outburst of anger had ended with him biting over and over again on the bruises he’d left on her lips and around her mouth just mere hours before, pressing on her thigh with his erect cock, fabric rubbing against fabric to create some much needed friction… She’d failed to prove the point she’d gone there to prove in the first place. Once again he had taken, and she had given. Once again she had lost the precious control she claimed was hers and hers only. Well, the way he had so easily made her melt around him with his kisses told a different story.

 

She had no control when it came to him. She could pretend she did, she could feed herself lies in the time she spent lying in bed with her eyes fixed on the ceiling ignoring the reactions her body had because she was feeding it nothing, but in the end she would always, always lose.

 

He was her downfall. Her weakness. She couldn’t say no to him, had never been able to do so, and no matter how much she screamed, no matter how firm the words coming out of her mouth had sounded, and how she had not stuttered, not even once. All those things did not matter in the end, for the minute he decided that it was over, that she should just shut up, he knew exactly how to make it happen. And she let him. She’d always let him (and that was, perhaps, the worst part.)

 

And no, she knew it should not be like that. She had gone there to tell him off, to make explicit and clear that he could not keep taking from her. She had asked him what it was he wanted because she was tired of not understanding, tired of fighting herself and him in this battle going on constantly in her mind.

 

He had answered to her question by kissing her senseless, placing himself between the V of her legs and rubbing on her urgently, desperately. But why? To prove himself superior to her, more perfect, more in control? To make her stop talking? To make clear that he could do what he wanted whenever he wanted and that she’d always let him have his way?

 

(It never crossed her mind that the answer to the question she had asked was that it was her he wanted. Plain as that. Her, and only her, exactly the way she was. No changes needed to reach perfection. No. It never crossed her mind, not even once. It never occurred to her that it was because of her that he was hard as a rock and acting on pure instinct and need, like some sort of animal that does not have any control whatsoever simply because they are that -animals- and they do not know the first thing about control.)

 

If he was torturing her, playing with her before he chewed her up and spat her out, then she was enjoying every fucking minute of it: his taste, the feel of his erection rubbing on her, his big hands cradling her head, her face, and pushing it up to meet to crash against his. She loved the anger coming off of her, and the fury, and the frustration, and whatever it was that was coming off of him and engulfing her, threatening to swallow her whole.

 

Did she like the pain? Yes, she did. The experiment she was conducting and that gave her no little amount of satisfaction involved a lot of sacrifice on her part, and the excellent results she had been getting had been obtained, in part, through  pain. Was there pleasure at the other end of the line? Yes, there was. And she was addicted to it. It calmed her, it relieved her. She feed off the results now that she only ingested food with the sole purpose of throwing it up later. And there was pain in those occasions, too, right before the waves of pleasure washed over her.

 

This had to be the same, somehow. But finding euphoria in this situation was not healthy, neither was feeling such a vast range of complicated, different, complex emotions in just a few minutes, one after the other and some of them even overlapping with each other. It couldn’t be right, and the fact that it was so wrong made it even more alluring.

 

He was shutting her up, suffocating her with his mouth, making her swallow the words so full of anger and resentment she’d been keeping shushed inside, letting them rot and poison the blood in her veins, and the thoughts in her head, and the beating of her heart. And she was letting him. Because wasn't that what she wanted from him? Attention. In any shape, in any form, at any cost. And this he was doing, setting her on fire only with his kisses and taking, taking, taking, always taking from her even what she did not want to give, it definitely counted as him noticing her, didn't it? This was exactly the opposite of ignoring her, and if he was doing it to prove to her she had no control whatsoever where he was concerned and no right to ask for anything from him, so be it. She was going to take this for as long as it was up for her to take. Because yes, he was taking control away from her by kissing her like that, rendering her speechless and even more useless than she considered herself to be, but he was also giving. For the first time he was giving her something, she realized, and maybe that meant that she won a little. She'd have her victories where she could. It would hurt like fucking hell the moment it was over, just like it had the first time. But she'd be damned if she didn't take from him while he gave. The pain and the withdrawal and everything else, she'd deal with that later.

 

She definitely was a masochist. A stupid, good for nothing, weak, hypocrite, trash can of a masochist. But in that moment, dizzy and lightheaded and breathless as she was, practically hanging on the edge of the kitchen counter and with her feather like weight supported by his embrace, she felt his masochist.

 

His. Finally. Finally she felt like something of his.

 

She could have stayed there forever, feeling his hard cock through the fabric of his trousers pulsing against her thigh the more it got filled with blood. In that moment, with his tongue slowly caressing her lips as if willing them open to deepen the kiss, she would have said yes to anything he asked in exchange for more of whatever the bloody hell that madness was. She would have dropped her experiment if he had asked her to do so in exchange of a lifetime of feeling the pressure of his body against hers.

 

A lifetime of feeling his.

 

(A lifetime of feeling as if he wanted to be hers.)

 

It all ended too abruptly.

 

The moment John and Mary made their presence known in the kitchen, Molly came down from her high. It was like finding herself expelled from Paradise and noticing for the first time how naked, vulnerable and imperfect she was. Euphoria was suddenly washed away by something that was only bitter and mortifying: shame.

 

What had she done? What had she allowed him to do? What had she been a willing participant in? Another one of his experiments, for sure. Another one of his cruel mechanisms to exert control over those he considered inferior and weaker and easy to manipulate through the flaw that was emotion.

 

He had tried to manipulate her by giving her some of what she craved desperately, surely to ask she stopped her experiment in exchange for promises of more. Promises that would surely never be delivered, broken before they were even made. The bastard! He thought he knew how to play her, thought he knew were to press and for how long, as if her willpower and resolution were the strings of his fucking violin.

 

Contrary to what anyone would have believed, she did not feel ashamed and mortified because two people had walked in on her making soft obscene noises while Sherlock Holmes sucked on her lips until they finally parted and fucked her thigh to get off. Yes, the situation in itself was shameful and mortifying, specially for someone shy and awkward like her. But her mind was too damaged, too consumed by its own experiment to notice anything but potential threats to the goal it had set for itself.

 

Perfection.

 

She was ashamed her love for Sherlock, albeit the most powerful and maddening thing she'd ever felt and the very prompt of her experiment, had blinded her enough to let in thoughts of giving up and giving in if he said so. She was ashamed she had almost walked into his carefully laid trap. _Let's give stupid, mousy Molly a little bit of what she wants to earn. Let her believe that she earned it, that she'd achieved her goal, lower her defenses. Let's feed her lies so she thinks she's won, and then she will give up and lose for real, and I’ll be the only one who is perfect and untouched by emotions, and she will never get to me the way she wants to_. And what would she be left with if she did that? Nothing. None of the pleasure Sherlock was tempting her with in these little doses. None of the constant pleasure she got from an experiment that needed hard work and consistency.

 

She was ashamed the thought had even crossed her mind: betraying months of effort, data collecting, and _pleasure_ simply because he was throwing temptation her way. _Show me how weak you are, show me how easy you cave in. Show me exactly how much of a puppet you are for me, and oh look at how I pull the strings._

 

Lightheaded and trembling all over again, Molly was overcome by the urgent desire to go back home, swallow down a dozen chocolate bars without chewing and then vomiting until she was clean of the feeling of treason and self-sabotage. She wanted to run from there, prove him that he could not do with her what he wanted when he wanted unless he truly proved he _meant_ it. She wanted to show him that she herself had meant all she’d said, and that she would not stop trying to reach her goal, become perfect, and be noticed, truly noticed, by him.

 

He would not stop her, she wanted to tell him that. In the end, she would win. Even if it didn’t look like it at the moment, with them still in a very uncomfortable, awkward position while his flatmate and his girlfriend took the scene in with eyes as big as saucers and mouths hanging open, she would not let him make a loser out of her.

 

Tachycardia, acceleration of lung action, flushed skin, loss of hearing, loss of peripheral vision… Her adrenal medulla was producing a hormonal cascade, and she was high on norepinephrine and epinephrine now. She knew what was the physiological reaction she was having: acute stress response. Fight or flight. And right now she was so tired of fighting (look where fighting had led her, for God’s sake, she could still feel his erection pressing on her leg!)

 

She had to leave. She had to go.  

 

That was the conclusion Molly Hooper arrived at in the split second between John and Mary’s interruption and her reaction:

 

“I-I-I-I ha-have t-t-t-to go.”

 

She said the words quietly, perhaps more to herself than to the other three people in a kitchen that a minute before had contained the whole universe and all its secrets as far as she was concerned, but that now seemed too small, too crowded. A deadly trap.

 

Molly slid off the kitchen counter and left. The sudden movement caused her vision to cloud. For a moment, she feared she would pass out. ( _P_ _lease, don’t let it happen, please,_ she pleaded with whatever deity was up there listening.) But she didn’t. She made it to the door and out of 221B Baker Street before anyone could stop her. She didn’t quite catch some words Mary said as she passed by her hurriedly, but she did not care, even if she suspected they were addressed to her. She wanted to leave, and so she did.

 

Fight or flight response.

 

She fled, for she was too consumed to put up a fight and win.

 

And Molly Hooper was determined Sherlock Holmes _would not_ win.

 

* * *

 

Ever since he was a child- ever since he could remember- Sherlock had had a complicated relationship with his senses. His brain always had trouble processing and responding to the information it received through them. He had always been hypersensitive, to the point that he ended up adopting drugs as a coping mechanism in the face of stimulation so constant and so aggressive to his nerves that it sometimes felt as being attacked. ‘Special’, his Mummy would call him. ‘Sensory processing disorder’, a professional would say if asked for a differential diagnosis.

 

He had gradually grown used to common tastes, smells or sounds being overwhelming for him. But nothing could have prepared Sherlock for the silence that settled in the moment Molly broke free of his grip and left.

 

It was so deafening it was painful.

 

And so he did what he’d always done when he felt too disturbed by the environment.

 

He shut down.

 

It was not the same as going into his Mind Palace. It was different. It made all notions of the real world go away. He was not here nor there. He was nowhere. Nothing reached him from the outside world or from the world inside. It was perfect.

 

He did not notice that Mary left immediately after Molly, nor did he make out any of what John was saying to him. His ears had stopped working the moment Molly tossed at them a barely audible excuse in that _Molly_ tone of hers, the stuttering fully back on. It was a blessing, really, to have learned how to control the sensorial input. It was a skill that had taken him some time to master, but he could not be more grateful that he now excelled at it.

 

It did not bring him peace of mind (and peace of mind was something he was sure he’d never have again) but at least it was a shield. An escape. The silence in his mind was not as deafening, it wasn’t sharp and painful, and couldn’t do him any harm. For the silence in his mind was not real and heavy with the consequences of what had just happened, or the hypothesis of what could have happened.

 

The problem turned out to be that John Watson did not want to let Sherlock have an escape.

 

“What the bloody hell was it that I just saw?”

 

He didn’t know if he registered the question the first time it was asked. He supposed he didn’t. John looked seriously pissed at him, much in the fashion that he did when he had to repeat himself several times. And he also looked downright outraged.

 

Naturally, he thought Molly had left Baker Street the way she had, mortified and ashamed, because an acquaintance and some perfect stranger had walked in on her and Sherlock snogging. John probably thought Sherlock owed it to her to be a gentleman and make sure that if they were going to engage in any physical activities they had the place to themselves. As if he had planned any of it!

 

But there was something else as well. Some mixture of emotions, and a crudeness he had only seen whenever his sister’s alcoholism or difficult breakup were mentioned. And even on those occasions, it had not been as strong as it was now.

 

Protectiveness.   

 

John Watson was protective of Molly Hooper. Who would have thought it!

 

(And who would have thought that realization would make Sherlock instantly feel something voracious in the pit of his stomach -  _jealousy_. He was jealous, even if that woman John had been seeing steadily for the past couple of months had just been there in the flesh. It was ridiculous.)

 

He wanted to be left alone with his thoughts. Where he could run into hiding. But his mind was tainted now, too, he remembered. That was why his fingers hurt and were full of blisters and cuts, some old, some fresh: because he had had to turn to the violin, and then cigarettes, to avoid entering his Mind Palace. To avoid the Molly that lived there. The Molly that would surely appear the moment he stepped inside. There was no way he could escape her if he went in there now, not with the taste of her lips and the smell and feel of her still lingering, still haunting him. Still torturing him, slowly, into unwelcomed madness.

 

He had nowhere to run. On one end there was Mind Palace Molly, and in the other there was John demanding answers he did not have. And Sherlock was in the middle.

 

He tried to shut down again but couldn’t.

 

Funny thing about John, sometimes when he was right in front of him Sherlock could not shut down. It was as if his self-proclaimed only friend had the ability to drag him out of the limbo where he went when neither the real world nor his Mind Palace were available options.

 

(He wondered if that was one of those things that allegedly ‘made him more human’. Several people had commented on how he was different since John had become a part of his life. The truth was the process had begun long before Mike Stamford introduced them. It had begun years before, the day he was introduced to Molly Hooper. Both of them challenged his self-diagnosed psychopathology. It was only fitting that it was both of them he was desperate to run from right now when he wanted to be incapable of any emotion whatsoever, moreso than he ever had.)

 

If he couldn’t retreat somewhere else and he could not avoid John, then another of his resources would have to do.

 

He’d be his usual self until John got tired and left him alone.

 

“Your visual system is in working order, John. You know what you saw,” Sherlock said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Now if you’ll excuse me…” He tried to move past John and out of the kitchen, but the shorter man blocked the door.

 

“That’s it. That’s all you’re going to say.” John’s tone was also matter-of-fact, but contrary to Sherlock’s it was not neutral or almost defiant. It was dripping in anger.

 

He’d have to ignore him, go do something else. Anything else. The violin. He’d play the violin until the cuts opened again and he bled. Yes, he’d make himself bleed so much while he played that he’d get Molly Hooper out of his system. Her smell, her taste, her sounds, her lips, even how tiny and light she'd felt against him - he'd bleed it all out. It'd be just like detox, right? He'd been through that before, he could do it one more time. He’d play it all away.

 

(But cocaine and heroin were not the same as Molly. Two small doses and he felt he'd die - that he'd rather die- if he didn't have another one soon. It had gotten like that with cocaine and heroin, but it had not happened in a fortnight.)

 

The violin. Music would exorcise him. And if not, then cigarettes would. And if not…

 

He needed to fucking play right now, before thoughts of rubber bands and needles and the 'pop’ of a vial opening became more tempting.

 

Sherlock moved past John easily -there were sixth graders that were taller and had a better build, for fuck’s sake- and into the sitting room. He grabbed the instrument’s case.

 

But John still would not leave him be.

 

“Do not pick up that fucking violin, Sherlock! I’m talking to you!”

 

Without looking at him, he said in one long breath:

 

“I have no desire to talk to you, and contrary to what you’ve expressed in the past by engaging in conversation when I showed clear signs of aversion towards it, two are needed if two are going to talk. Well, it seems you will have to find someone else to converse with tonight.”

 

His tone was emotionless. That's exactly what he was: an emotionless person. A sociopath. Why would John expect anything different? Why was he still there? Why wouldn't he just let it go?

 

“Do not fucking act like a prick, Sherlock! You are going to listen to me!” John was now standing in front of him, not close enough to invade Sherlock's personal space though. Apparently there were some lines the doctor knew not to cross. Not even when he was mad at the consulting detective.

 

“I’m not,” Sherlock said simply, taking the violin out of its case and checking the strings. He was acting as if it were any other day and he was getting ready to practice. Because it was just like any other day, right? Because what did it matter that it was the middle of the night and he still could feel the pressure of Molly's lips on his? “I presume you are tired. It is late, you should get some rest.” Again with the matter-of-fact tone. And then, just in case there were any doubts left in John's brain: “Good night.”

 

John didn't move for a moment. But then, he shook his his head vigorously and said:

 

“No, no, no, no. We won’t pretend nothing happened…”

 

Sherlock looked at him in the eye, his fingers on the instrument’s strings but unmoving.

 

“Nothing did happen,” he said each word slowly for emphasis.

 

John let out a frustrated sigh. Could Sherlock not see things the way he did? Did he not understand why it was so important that they talked about it? Apparently he didn't. No, he clearly didn't. And it was stupid of John to give him that much credit, really. If Sherlock had the ability to understand why it was important they talked about it instead of simply ignoring it then he would also be able to notice a couple of things about Molly and they wouldn't even have to have that conversation to begin with.

 

He would have to make Sherlock listen, and see, and understand. As it had been his job ever since they became flatmates, John would have to some common sense and decency and empathy into him.

 

At that moment, there wasn't a thing in the world that John Watson wanted to do less.

 

But he had to. It wasn’t really about helping Sherlock be a better person. It was about making sure he did not break Molly Hooper more than life’s circumstances- whatever were in her case- already had. Mary (she had gone after her, God bless her!) would want him to grab Sherlock by the neck and rub his nose on his mistake, the same way you do with a puppy when you’re still training him to not take a piss all over your carpet and furniture.

 

“You listen to me, you prick...” John started, his hand left and a finger pointing at Sherlock.

 

But he wouldn’t have it. No. He needed silence. Even the deafening silence from before would do. He’d take that any day over being lectured by John on things he did not understand. Things that Sherlock himself did not understand.

 

He didn’t want to listen. He didn’t want to have social niceties or whatever explained to him. He did not want to stay in the same room as John, being looked at as if he were some kind of oddity simply because he was shocked to discover he was not, contrary to popular belief, asexual. (Maybe because sometimes he wondered whether his sociopathic behaviour didn’t make him that. A freak. He certainly had been perceived as one by several people. He had been called one so many times… He feared that John was about to do just that. Call him a freak.)

 

But why would he do that, right? John knew nothing about his feelings for Molly. He knew nothing of the things going on inside Sherlock’s mind ever since he had met the young pathologist, long before he even met him. He probably was just mad in the way flatmates often were when they came home to their friend and a potential sexual partner snogging on shared furniture. He probably was- he hated to say this- overreacting. It didn’t make him more eager to listen to John give him a speech about keeping his trousers zipped unless he was in his own room (they had not been unzipped to begin with, but well) or tying a tie to the doorknob, or letting him now beforehand that he’d have someone over like John always did.

 

He still did not want to listen. It didn’t matter, he didn’t care. It wouldn’t happen again. It couldn’t happen again.

 

He wanted to be left alone with his music, and his demons, and his cravings. And his battle against the phantom of Molly’s taste, and smell, and feel.

 

“I already made clear that I won’t listen to you,” Sherlock said in a voice that held much more calmness than he actually felt.

 

John made another sound of frustration. If he wanted his friend to listen to reasons he’d have to change his approach, take it down a notch. He exhaled a couple of breaths and blinked rapidly, like he often did when he was under stress. Sherlock now had his back to him, and the first notes of a sonata or whatever those things were called began to fill the room.

 

“Sherlock,” he started “that girl is not well.”

 

The music stopped abruptly. He laid down both the violin and the bow, placed them on his chair.

 

This wasn’t about not engaging on any form of sexual foreplay or intercourse where John and Woman of the Month could walk in on them.

 

This was about Molly’s wellbeing.

 

Somehow he knew Molly was not all right.

 

The copy of the _Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders_ he’d borrowed from Mary. He had seen him nose deep between its covers. Sherlock thought he was doing some research, something for a blog entry, or perhaps it was a reading recommended by his mental health nurse/college professor girlfriend…

 

_I always miss something._

 

He had been doing research, yes, but it was for Molly. He had noticed, long before Sherlock did judging by the first time he had seen the hardback laying around the flat, that there was something wrong with Molly. And, probably prompted by Mary, he had taken into his hands to educate himself on the subject.

 

But how? Why? They were mere acquaintances, the only link between them the detective himself. Their interactions had only been in Sherlock's presence, when he and John visited Bart's for a case or an experiment. Even if John had been able to deduce what was wrong with Molly (impossible as it sounded), why would he care enough to go to such lengths? Why was she to him?

 

(Jealousy again. It felt like being eaten alive from the inside.)

 

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, and I don’t care. Just leave Molly Hooper alone and out of your twisted mind games.”

 

John was accusing him of not caring for her when the only thing he had done since the day they met was exactly that: _caring._ Even when he fought it, and tried not to, and drove himself to the verge of pure madness with his attempts. He cared so much for her it hurt him in his bones, in his veins, in his skin, in his mind. It made him vulnerable, and weak.

 

It made him human.

 

And yet John still thought it was a game to him. He didn’t see it, didn’t recognize it for what it was. He didn’t understand what it did to him. John Watson thought Sherlock Holmes to be the sociopath he had always been convinced he was. The sociopath he told everyone he was. And sociopaths did not care for people, now did they? They did not feel anything like compassion or love. They used people, took advantage of them. They played mind games with them and then they leave once it all becomes boring or predictable. It wasn’t wrong of John to think that, right? It was how Sherlock was to everyone else. It was how Sherlock said he liked to be. It wasn’t so strange that John would think he was doing exactly that to Molly: playing with her.

 

Well, he wasn’t.

 

If anything, it was her playing mind games with him. But he was not going to tell John that.

 

“It is not a game.”

 

He said the words slowly, more to himself than to John. It was not a game for him, that was what he meant to say. John, however, thought that he was denying the accusations, pleading ‘not guilty’ like sociopaths often did when caught and charged with the consequences of their behaviour.

 

“ _She_ is not a game, Sherlock,” the doctor said, raising his voice and stressing the pronoun. “ _She_ is a person, and _she_ is sick.” And then, he began to do what John always did when completely exasperated: ask rhetorical questions. “Did you not see how underweighted and burnt out she looks?” Of course he had seen it. He had _felt_ it. He had felt her bones. “Do you not see her at all?” Yes, yes, yes, he saw her. That was the problem: he had always seen her and he was yet to find a way to make it stop. “Does that peculiar brain of yours not register others’ suffering? One look, Sherlock, one look at her and you can tell Molly Hooper is not all right.”

 

One look. Had it really only taken John one look to reach the realization that had surprised Sherlock after months of unconsciously ignoring the changes in Molly Hooper’s body? Was it that easy? Did it only take one look? If it was so obvious, if it was right there, bare and raw for all to see, why wasn’t anyone doing something?

 

( _Why aren’t you doing something?_ )

 

“I never said she was all right.”

 

John raised his voice again:

 

“Then fucking act like you know she isn’t!”

 

“I did not ask her over tonight. She came here of her own volition.”

 

Why was he offering John an explanation? Did he owe him one? No. Did he want him to have one? No. Was John supposed to care? No, he wasn’t. It was not his business. Molly was not his business. (Just like she wasn’t supposed to be Sherlock’s, either.)

 

Why was he still standing there? Why did he not simply go to his room, lock the door and play the violin until he bled her out of his system like he wished to?

 

Maybe because he was ashamed. Ashamed John had noticed before he did. Ashamed John thought him unable to care. Ashamed he did care. He was still there, unmoving and listening to an angry John Watson, because he believed he deserved it. He deserved a much worse punishment, to be honest- and his very own mind would see to it. But right now he was in no state to deal with his very own mind without ending up with a needle in his arm as a consequence, so John’s anger and his words would have to suffice.

 

It had never occurred to him before, but perhaps he was a masochist as much as he was a sociopath.

 

(Or, perhaps, he was only a masochist when it came to Molly Hooper.)

 

“She pushed your tongue down her throat of her own volition, too?” John inquired sarcastically.

 

“There was no tongue involvement..”

 

It was true. There hadn’t been any tongue involvement. John and Mary had interrupted them just before he parted her lips with his tongue…

 

_Stop._

 

“You were rubbing your clothed groin on her thigh like some stray dog…” the doctor said on the verge of indignation.

 

“If she had asked me to stop, I would have,” Sherlock’s voice was still calm, his deep baritone the same as always. As if they were discussing a case over tea. As if he was not being eating alive from the inside by all sort of complex emotions. “It was consensual,” he added.

 

John sighed in frustration again.

 

“Molly Hooper is not in any state to consent to anything”. And then he raised his voice once more. “How is it that you do not see it, Sherlock?” He wasn’t sure about the nature of that question, and for a moment he thought that maybe it was not a rhetorical one. “How is it possible that in that presumably brilliant mind of yours there are not enough grey cells with the ability to understand that someone crying and trembling and on the verge of passing out cannot consent to a fucking thing?”

 

Oh, great. Now he was accusing him of assault. That was the kind of sociopath he thought he was: not a freak but a heartless monster, so consumed by inner darkness that he would take advantage of someone fragile and mentally unbalanced. He shouldn't care that it offended him so much, right? He had done well all by his own before John and he moved in together and became friends, why did he care that now apparently he turned out to be one of those people that looked at him as if he were a monster?

 

And yet it hurt. It hurt that John would think he would do something, anything, to harm Molly on purpose. And that presented Sherlock with a new question: had he really been pushing Molly away to preserve his cherished mental balance, or had it all been about preserving _hers_? How many times had he been told he was impossible to deal with? How many people had faced the barrel of a gun as a consequence of their involvement with him? Moriarty had gotten to Molly somehow, even if Sherlock had never given any signs that she made him feel the way she did. What could have happened if he had not fought the demons that haunted him since his and Molly's paths had first crossed? She would have definitely been in much more danger…

 

No, he would never hurt Molly Hooper deliberately. And every time he did, it had been to protect her more than it had been to protect himself.

 

But he couldn't tell John that. This was not a realization to share with the doctor, or anyone for that matter. This was private.

 

“I did not force myself on her,” he rectified between gritted teeth. And then he did something stupid and offered his flatmate more information than was necessary: “neither time.”

 

“So this was not the first time it happened?” John asked, mouth hanging open in disbelief and eyes big as saucers.

 

The cat was out of the bag now. He had over shared. He needed to get out of the sitting room and off John's horrified face before he said more of what should remain private, hidden, his.

 

“No.”

 

One word answers. Good.

 

“When…?”

 

“Earlier tonight.”

 

A look of realization appeared on the doctor's face.

 

“When you went to Bart’s,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “You did not go there for an experiment, did you? You went there to see her.” He sounded flabbergasted, like a child who has just put together the pieces of the puzzle and come to the conclusion that mummy and daddy are behind Father Christmas’ visits.

 

He'd deny it, of course. He'd deny it to John with the same ferocity he'd use with anyone else. Even with himself.

 

“No. I did not.”

 

If he believed it or not, John didn't say. He asked another question instead:

 

“What was she doing here tonight, Sherlock?”

 

“She came here out of her own volition.”

 

She had. She had knocked on his door and invaded his home, his personal space, in the same way she had invaded his Mind Palace and made it practically impossible to inhabitat. He had not wanted her there, just like he did not want her in his thoughts and dreams.

 

“You already said that. I didn’t ask whether she came here by herself or if you dragged her up and down the street all the way from Bart’s, although I wouldn’t put it past you…”

 

Sherlock spoke before thinking, his tongue moving faster than his brain. It was as if John's words had burned his skin and unchained a reaction fueled purely on anger.

 

“Is that what you think of me? That I could be violent, physically abusive with a woman?”

 

John did not back off.

 

“You most certainly are verbally abusive with Molly Hooper,” he accused him.

 

“I was not violent to her,” he repeated, his tone a warning that he was reaching his limit and the conversation was coming to an end soon. “I did not force myself on her. I did not force her to come here.”

 

“What was she doing here tonight, Sherlock?” John asked again.

 

He wouldn't let it go. He would insist, and insist, and insist because that was what John Watson did: he insisted. He tried, and tried, and tried for Sherlock to do, and say, and learn things that he had no interest in doing, saying or learning. And Sherlock did not push him away, and sometimes he even humoured him, because he was his friend.

 

Because Sherlock cared about John.

 

That was what having people care for you did to you. That was what caring for them did to you. Was there a disadvantage any worse than caring? And how was it that he got to experience it, if he was not supposed to care at all?

 

But he did. He cared for John. He cared for Molly. And for some reason caring for his one and only friend compelled him to tell the truth instead of brushing him aside and hiding inside his bedroom to play the violin until he bled.

 

Caring, he discovered, made you stay when you should run for the door. Caring made you honest. And all those things, he supposed, made you more human.

 

And so he told John the truth:

 

“She was crossed at me because I kissed her.”

 

There it was. The cat was out of the bag once again. He had admitted to kissing Molly for the first time when he went to Bart's, and now he was admitting that the reason why she had gone to Baker Street had to do with it.

 

John was not pleased to hear this.

 

He was even more outraged than before. All the signs: the way his breathing got louder, the fact that he was pinching the bridge or his nose, the lines in his forehead that spoke of how much he was restraining from punching Sherlock in the face.

 

“And yet you insist you were not forcing yourself on her. I can’t believe you.”

 

There was a moment's silence during which John did not even look at him, his eyes fixed on the floor while he pondered all the information his flatmate had just offered.

 

Sherlock should have left then. He should have picked up the violin and leave for his bedroom while John was lost in his reflections of what a monster he had been living with for almost a year.

 

But he didn't.

 

And so when the former soldier lifted his head with a look of pure anger directed at him, the world's only consulting detective was still standing there.

 

“She comes here bordering on hysteria, completely crossed at you because you kissed her, and you handle the situation by sticking your tongue down her throat and rubbing your cock on her like you’re a teenager and she is a large pillow”

 

It was an statement. It was what John believed happened.

 

“It is not what happened.”

 

Useless, of course. All words were useless at that point, for each and any of them would not matter. He could tell by the look on John's face that he cared very little for Sherlock's understanding of the events. In this case, be trusted himself more than he did Sherlock's observing skills.

 

“It’s what it looked like to me.”

 

He did not even begin to understand what had gone on that night, what had been going on for the last couple of days. He did not understand what it was like for Sherlock since he had noticed Molly's anorexia, or what it was like for him since he had met the young pathologist long before he'd been in need of a flatmate. He would never be able to look at it like Sherlock did, because it was impossible for someone as human as John Watson to get the point of view of a sociopathic man.

 

No, he wouldn't expect John to understand. And he was not going to try and explain, either. He didn't understand himself to begin with.

 

“You always look, but you don’t observe.”

 

But it was easier to blame it on John's lack of observing skills, wasn't it? Of course it was. He always did that: blame it on others. All sociopaths did that. It was others that didn't understand. It was others that looked but were unable to observe. It was him that was a terribly misunderstood person in possession of a superb intellect that allowed him to understand that the body was a transport and that emotions were not biological but imposed by society. It was him that was misjudged because he had the superior ability not to let those impositions dictate his behaviour.

 

(But did he really have it? Was he really that special? Or were Molly Hooper and John Watson proving that he was, after all, a common freak?)

 

“Are you seriously going to tell me that Molly Hooper wanted whatever it was that you had going on in the kitchen before Mary and I arrived?” John did not wait for an answer- not that he was going to get one anyway. “Do you seriously expect me to believe that the poor girl that left this flat in tears, shaking like a leaf, wanted anything of what you were doing to her? For fuck’s sake, Sherlock, she came here to yell at you because you crossed a line at Bart’s, and you went and did it again!”

 

He kept on talking, not caring whether Sherlock wanted to reply to his allegations or not.

 

“And what do you think gives you the right to manhandle her like she’s a ragdoll? Why am I surprised, though, you always treat her like one...”

 

He finally interrupted him.

 

“I was not manhandling her. I was not hurting her. It was consensual. And so was when it happened at Bart’s. She kissed me back. On both occasions.” His tone was firm and, once again, there was a warning quality to it. He didn't know how long he'd stay there, for he felt it in his body and somewhere deep inside that he wouldn't be able to last much longer without finally taking the violin and bow and telling John to shut the fuck up and mind his own business.

 

“And do all women cry and have near panic attacks when you kiss them?” Sarcasm. “Or does it only happen with Molly Hooper?”

 

She had been crying, it was true. She was crying when she left, and she had been crying when they'd been kissing. He could still feel it in his hands, his skin, his cheeks- the stains of her warm, wet tears.

 

She had been crying because of him, demanding he told her what it was he wanted…

 

He was scared of the answer.

 

“Sherlock, I don’t know, nor do I care, about your experience with the female sex or any sex whatsoever,” John said “I just want to make one thing clear for you: Molly Hooper is a person.”

 

He knew. He had felt her heart beating on her chest, and heard her labored breathing. He had touched her skin, pale and smooth and somewhat colder than he'd imagined, perhaps from lack of proper nutrition. He knew she was a person. She was human, and beautiful, and fragile...

 

“In case you didn’t notice, and it’s obvious that you didn’t, she is not doing well,” John kept going.

 

Yes, he had noticed. Maybe after John did, that was true, but he had finally noticed nonetheless. And the knowledge was consuming him. _Devouring him_. That was why he had not stopped playing for days. That was why his hands were brutally butchered.

 

“She doesn’t need you complicating things for her, or kissing her out of the blue because you decided you fucking felt like it, and then doing it again when she comes to tell you off for it. She deserves space, and needs people that care about her. And she needs help. And what you did, mate, falls within the spectrum of a little bit not good.”

 

“I didn’t want to complicate things for her…”

 

That was true as well. He hadn't wanted that. Didn't want that. Things were already complicated for him without her making comments about dying and triggering him to kiss her. They were complicated enough without her knocking on his door and shouting at him until he lost it once more. They were complicated from start, and it was those complications that he had been trying to avoid. He didn't wish for her to go through the same, didn't want to make it worse...

 

“You don’t know what it is you want, Sherlock.”

 

Yes, he did. That was the problem. He knew exactly what he wanted and that drove him crazy. Because she made him want things he was not supposed to want. She made him feel things he was not supposed to feel.

 

She made him want, and crave, and care much more than he ever did.

 

“But please leave this sick girl out of your… whatever this is” John pleaded with him, making a random gesture with his hand when he found himself at a loss for words. “She’s got enough as it is right now, can’t you see it?” He sighed again in exasperation and annoyance. “Of course you can’t, why do I even ask. But please spare her from whatever mind games you’ve decided to play.”

 

He was not playing, could not John see it? No, he couldn't. Sherlock had sold himself as someone that saw everything as a puzzle. A case. A game. John Watson did not have the first idea that Molly Hooper was the exception to the rule, for Sherlock did not see her as any of those things. But why would John believe him if he explained that? He had never given him any reason to think that he had the ability to experience the complex emotions he was feeling. On the contrary, he had gone to extreme lengths to conceive this information from his only friend as well as from the rest of the world. For some time, he had gone as far as conceiving it from himself..

 

“Please,” John said once more. And then, looking more tired and older than Sherlock had ever seen him, he announced: “I’m going to bed now.”

 

And then the former army doctor left for his room, and Sherlock Holmes was finally left alone like he wanted. Alone with his violin, and his music that he started playing immediately, and his thoughts that refused to stay put and quiet. Alone, just like he enjoyed being. John Watson had caved in first and put an ending to the argument he himself had started. He had finally understood there wasn't anything he could do other than say those words of warning and pray they didn't fall on deaf ears. And then he had gone to bed and left his flatmate alone. Just what he wanted.

 

But then why did Sherlock not feel like he'd won?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the wonderful comments you've been leaving this story. I hope this chapter was not a disappointment, either. I truly enjoyed writing this one, and I am enjoying writing the next one even more! I can't wait to hear what you think! Thank you all once again.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

Molly let herself out of 221B Baker Street without giving any indications that she could hear Mary calling her name. The older woman followed her out of the building, but refrained from touching her. John and her had already violated Molly’s privacy tonight, albeit accidentally, by walking in on her and Sherlock during an intimate moment. Mary supposed that invasion had triggered her reaction. She was not going to complicate matters further by invading her personal space or with her unwanted touch.

 

She made her presence known but kept a prudent distance from Molly. The young pathologist walked in a fast pace for three blocks, Mary close behind her, until she reached a dimly lit corner. When Molly stopped in her tracks, Mary did too, some six feet still between them.

 

The pathologist leaned with her back to the wall of a closed shop. It could be said that she was paler than the full moon that hung over them. Tear-stained face and dark circles under her big doe-like eyes, Molly Hooper looked like a frightened child. She clutched her chest with one hand, and her eyelids dropped. She was sweating even though it was a cold night, but the trembling was so violent she might as well be suffering from hypothermia.

 

But that wasn’t the case.

 

The woman pretending to be Mary Morstan knew very well what panic attacks were like.This knowledge, however, had not come from textbooks. She read _Cognitive Therapy of Anxiety Disorders_ by Adrian Wells long after witnessing one of those episodes for the first time. It had never happened to her personally, though. She was foreign to fear and anxiety. It was one of the reasons why the bank balance in the offshore accounts to her name ended in several zeros: it took a lot of nerve and no little amount of detachment to do her job.

 

(And yet she had grown attached to John Watson. _To her mission._ And now she was worried about someone that had nothing at all to do with her assignment. _There’s an exception to every rule,_ her mother would often say. _There’s always something._ )

 

Shortness of breath. palpitation, sweating, sense of choking, trembling, chest pain, de-realization… Molly Hooper seemed to be suffering from all of those symptoms - and probably some more. Only God knew what was exactly going through her head, what ran deep inside her mind, hidden from the rest of the world and invisible to others. Those were, Mary was certain, the worst. That which you can’t see but only feel so buried within yourself, the sensation of desperation and loss… It had once been explained to Mary as ‘an attack by a force that it is as powerful as it is intangible.’ Later on, when she trained as a mental health specialized nurse, she dug up from the depths of her mind the words that described how that person had experienced their panic attacks.

 

She wondered how Molly would describe her own experience with them. Mary had done her fair share of research since their afternoon tea, and she knew that the young registrar was not seeing a therapist, nor had she ever been to one. Had she ever talked about these episodes with anyone? She doubted it. She also supposed, judging by the way the younger woman was holding herself together, that they were frequent and no longer took her by surprise.

 

Mary stood off to the side and waited quietly for Molly to calm down. She wished she could say this was the most vulnerable she had seen a person outside of work or training. But witnessing an acquaintance have a panic attack ranked lowly in her list. She had seen people in worse states long before she could fully comprehend what was happening to them. A child can’t understand why some people scream or hurt themselves out of the blue. They can’t see the reasoning behind a person’s altered, harmful behaviour. But they can hear the yelling, the crying. They can see the scars, and the blood, and the dark circles like the ones under Molly’s eyes. She often wondered if her interest in mental health came from the contact she’d had since early childhood with people that suffered from several psychological disorders. If she had been raised by her birth family, perhaps she would have chosen a different career path.

 

It was not the time nor the place to reflect on that. Actually, she made a point of not allowing herself to reflect on any of those things. What happened, happened. There was nothing to be done about it. No substantial chance in the present could come of analyzing a past that was, as all past things were, unchangeable.

 

When Molly’s breathing stabilized and the uncontrollable shaking abated, the pathologist opened her eyes slowly. With her gaze fixed on the pavement ( _dizziness,_ Mary guessed) and still gasping a little as if she had just run a good forty blocks, Molly spoke for the first time since the two women had left 221B Baker Street.  

 

“L-l-leave m-me a-a-alone.”

 

Oh, the magic words. Had Mary heard them a thousand times! _Leave me alone, I’m in control._ She’d actually seen this before, both in her practice and on her mission. Those that hold control as something precious, a treasure of sorts, think that its possession entitles them to anything. Some are actually scared to see themselves and be seen adrift. Others are egomaniacal and narcissist. All of them were lonely and weak. And those like Molly, the ones that felt control was the only thing to be had when there was nothing else, were the weakest.

 

And she really wanted to help this girl.

 

“You don’t need to be alone right now,” Mary said softly, still respecting Molly’s personal space.

 

“I want t-t-to b-be left a-a-alone,” she stuttered. She did not raise her voice, but it sounded a little like she’d tried to punctuate the words to make them sharper.

 

Mary did not move, and Molly did not ask her to leave a second time.

 

“Sometimes we don’t want the things we need,” she said softly. Her tone wasn’t patronizing. If anything, she made it seem as if she were contrasting theories with an equal. She did consider Molly an equal. A young, brilliant, beautiful woman that did not know yet that she was all of those things and more. Her illness wasn’t a flaw, nor was it the only thing that defined her as a person. She was so much more than the rough patch she was currently going through. Mary knew that simply telling her that wouldn’t suffice. Molly needed professional help, but she also needed a patient, loving hand. And Mary Morstan happened to have a very capable pair at the end of her arms.

 

The problem was Molly did not agree.

 

“You d-d-don't know what I n-n-need. You d-d-don't know m-me.”

 

She still refused to take her eyes off the pavement and look at Mary. That didn't mean the blonde woman could not see that tears were silently streaming down her face. She had seen that several times, too: the quiet anguish that followed the attacks. When she did her nurse training (she had pretended to be a foreign student for that, an American named Grace Montgomery) she met an anxiety disorder patient that said he cried after every episode because it 'cleaned’ him on the inside. She had begun noticing a lot of patients cried after they had a fit or an attack. It wasn't because they were still scared or sad: they cried because they were relieved it was (if only for the time being) over.

 

“I want to get to know you,” Mary said honestly. “I want to help you.”

 

At the mention of the word 'help’, Molly snapped. Her voice was still a murmur and the stuttering got even worse, but she lifted her head to look at the other woman in the eye. Visual contact. That was what Mary called progress.

 

“I d-d-don't n-need help. I'm f-f-fine.” She tried to control the stuttering and had some moderate success. “I'm f-fine. I just want t-t-to go home.”

 

She looked around the empty street, probably trying to know how far away from Baker Street she had made it before collapsing under the pressure she was shouldering alone.

 

“I want to go home. I'll go home n-now.”

 

But she didn't move. The trembling started again. There was a chance she had no clue where she was, and not for lack of familiarity with that part of town. She was still unaware of her surroundings. Her building could have been just around the corner and she wouldn't have known it.

 

“Can I see you home? Make sure you get there safe?” Mary asked.

 

“I'm f-f-fine. I'm f-f-fine.” She was getting worked up again. “I d-d-don't n-need you to s-s-ee m-me home. I d-d-don't n-need anyone.” She insisted. “I’m f-f-fine. I'll get home on m-my own.”

 

But Molly didn't move. She stood there, lumped against the wall, the fingers of her right hand busy pinching the skin around the fingers in her left one, little threads of it coming off as she did. That had to hurt, but Mary supposed that she found it pleasurable and relaxing. A lot of patients she had seen in her training years did that, especially the anxious ones. She didn't comment on it, but took the chance to observe the young pathologist in more detail instead.

 

She didn't have a purse or a bag with her. Mary doubted she had walked all the way from her flat to Baker Street - she was in no fit physical state to do so. She must have a couple of pounds in her pockets, she supposed. She had taken a cab there and was probably going to try and find a cab to go back home. It didn't sit all right with Mary, leaving her alone with God knew exactly how much money. And even if she had had a thousand pounds with her, that wasn't even the first of Mary's worries. She wouldn't sleep well that night unless she made sure Molly got home safe and sound. And even after that, she knew she'd still be unable to keep thoughts of the young pathologist far from her mind. Not after what she had seen, both at Baker Street and right there on that poorly lit corner of London.

 

“I’m worried about you, Molly.”

 

It was an admission as much as it was a testimony to how far away Mary was walking from the carefully drawn boundaries that were needed when you were in the business of deceiving people. But she had already gone off safe territory when she fell in love with John Watson. She had never said the words out loud, and she was fearing the moment he said them (and something told her that that would happen soon). She dreaded it not because she wouldn't be able to say it back to him, but because she was terrified she would. And she really shouldn't.

 

She shouldn't be admitting to Molly that she worried about her, either. Showing true sentiment was not a part of her job. It was, in fact, clearly frowned upon. You show where your pressure points are, they get you. You lose. Her current mission was entirely based on Sherlock Holmes’ most visible pressure point. (The most visible, not the only one. It was the only one her bosses knew about.) She shouldn't be showing hers. But there was the woman pretending to be Mary Morstan, openly displaying genuine interest in another human being. She had not been allowed to do that ever since after she left the place where she'd been brought up.

 

You can't afford the luxury of caring when you join the devil's lines.

 

It took John Watson to make her realize they hadn't completely succeeded in washing emotion out of her. Now Molly Hooper was proving that the great capacity for compassion and empathy she had shown toward others in her childhood was still somewhat intact.

 

Molly asked the same questions the blonde, older woman was asking herself:

 

“Why?”

 

Her voice was hoarse from all the crying, but she was a lot calmer as she looked at Mary. The question was honest. She wanted to know why. Why Mary cared, why she had followed her, why she was still there, why she insisted. There was not much room left for guessing: the youngest of the two women was not used to people worrying about her. She was not used to being cared for. And so it felt strange, perhaps almost surreal, that now someone whom she barely knew did.

 

She wanted to know why. Well, Mary might as well tell her the truth.

 

“Because you are lonely, and alone, and I can see what you are doing to yourself.”

 

Mary's tone was gentle but firm. The revelation of the reasons for her interest visibly scared Molly. It was like catching a child with their hand in the cookie jar.

 

“I'm n-not d-doing anything to m-myself,” she said, doe-like eyes wide open in horror at the accusations. Of course she would deny it. They all denied they had a problem at first. Molly was no different.

 

Well, Mary would not go against her on this. Molly was in denial. She wouldn't admit to what she was doing to herself. All right. Mary could work with that. She'd worked with tougher subjects after all. She'd find other ways to approach her.

 

“I see what Sherlock does to you, then.”

 

There. The magic word had been spoken: Sherlock. She wouldn't pressure Molly into confessing to her unhealthy eating habits. She wouldn't explain how easy it was for her to see that she limited her food ingestion or threw up intentionally after gulping down big meals. She couldn't call her out on those things because she had no proof and they could all be easily denied it. But she could talk to Molly about Sherlock. She had seen them passionately snogging less than an hour ago, and Molly had already been shaking and crying then.

 

Molly didn't take the mention of Sherlock well. If anything, she became more upset. The trembling and the stuttering got worse than ever, and she was white as a ghost.

 

“Sh-sh-sh-sherlock does n-not - d-d-does n-not d-do anything to m-me,” she said, defensively. The girl was furiously pinching the skin of her left thumb now, and it was so red and raw that it soon would begin bleeding.

 

“Girls often pick petals off a flower,” Mary commented casually, giving a nod of her head to what Molly was doing to her fingers. “He loves me, he loves me not.” Molly said nothing, and she didn't stop her ministrations to her fingers either. “You are hurting yourself over him. You’re picking chunks off your own skin while you ponder the question.”

 

The pathologist’s body stiffened visibly at Mary's statement. It had been a crude thing to say, yes, she wouldn't deny that. Maybe she had been a little bit out of place with the analogy, but she had always been known for telling things as they were. And that was exactly what it looked like: at the moment, to her Molly was a sad, little girl picking off her own skin while she suffered in silence because she wasn't sure if the boy she liked was even aware of her existence. It was a lot more complex, of course. But the doubts, the loneliness, the fear, the pain… It was all there.

 

“Sh-sh-sherlock d-does n-not l-l-love… he does not l-love… l-love a-anyone” Molly struggled to say. “He d-doesn’t love a-anyone.” She was trying to sound casual, aloof even. Uninterested. Mary didn't buy it for a minute, of course.

 

“I don’t know him very much, in fact I just met him in person this very night, but for what John tells me…”

 

Molly interrupted her, her eyes once again fixed on the pavement while she absentmindedly pinched the skin around the nail of her left index.

 

“I d-don’t want t-to t-talk a-about him.” And then she added: “I d-don’t want t-to t-talk at all.”

 

Unable to keep on watching her do that to her fingers, Mary said in a much firmer tone:

 

“Molly, you’re hurting yourself.”

 

“I s-said I’m f-f-fine,” the girl replied, bitterly.

 

“Dear, you are not.”

 

Molly looked up at her again, tears filling her eyes:

 

“D-does it m-m-m-matter?”

 

It did. Of course it mattered. Molly mattered, even if she couldn't see it. Mary wanted her to see, to understand that she was important. That she was a person deserving of love, and respect, and that people could and did care for her. Of course she mattered, and Mary was so sad that such a young, beautiful, brilliant girl had a hard time appreciating herself.

 

Mary tried to reason with her once more:

 

“Molly, please, stop doing that to your fingers. Please. I know the pain feels good, I know it’s comforting and that it relieves you. But ultimately you are not bringing yourself nothing but hurt, physically and emotionally…”

 

And, once more, the stuttering girl interrupted her:

 

“I d-don’t n-need y-you to p-play therapist.”

 

Anger. She was angry, like people with depression often were. Angry at her life, and her choices, and the hand she'd been dealt. Angry at others, at Mary probably for sticking her nose where it didn't belong. But mostly, Molly had to be angry at herself.

 

“I am not playing therapist.” Mary said. She really didn't take offense in Molly's crude tone. “I am trying to be your…”

 

“D-don’t s-say f-f-f-friend,” Molly prevented her. “I don’t n-need s-some v-version of g-girl t-t-talk, either.”

 

“If you don’t want me to be your friend, then let me be your advocate,” Mary suggested.

 

But Molly was determined not to let her get emotionally close to her, and Mary doubted there was anything she could do to change the young girl's mind that night.

 

“I d-don’t n-need or want t-t-that, either.”  

 

The blonde woman let out a sigh. She had no trouble recognizing or admitting when she was defeated, and she truly believed that one needed to know when one was supposed to back off. Well, it was backing off time for her now. She wouldn't get anything out of Molly tonight, and if she kept insisting she would end up pushing her away for good and she'd be unable to help her in the future.

 

She fished a business card out of her purse. It was like the one she had given John when she first met him, with her profession and contact details written in beautiful, minimalistic black Helvetica font.

 

Handing it out for Molly to take, she said:

 

“Whatever you need, call. Even if you just want to get together for some coffee and talk about nothing at all. Please.”

 

The blonde nurse almost breathed a sigh of relief when Molly took the card and slipped it inside the pocket of her trousers.

 

“Don’t hesitate to call. Whenever you feel alone, remember you are not. You have this card with my number. You have me.”

 

The girl said nothing, she just looked at her with those big doe-like eyes that spoke volumes about the sadness she felt and how lonely and helpless she thought she was.

 

Just then, they heard a car approaching them. It was a cab. Mary quickly made a sign with her hand for it to stop. The vehicle pulled over, and Molly let Mary help her into it.

 

“Where to, miss?” the cabbie asked. But before Molly gave him her home address, Mary tapped softly on the window hoping to say a parting words to her. Thankfully, instead of ignoring her Molly rolled the window down. And once again, brown eyes met blue and the two women spoke:

 

“Do you have cash?” Mary asked her, a hand already going back inside her purse to fish for her wallet.

 

“I d-do,” Molly said. “In m-my pocket.”

 

“Good.” A soft smile traced Mary's lips. “Molly, dear,” Mary decided to make it quickly, sensing that the driver was beginning to get impatient. A lover's quarrel or something, he probably thought. “Just like sometimes we don’t want the things we need most, others know exactly what they want but are too afraid of needing it.”

 

Molly said nothing at this, but she didn't roll the window up on Mary either. She simply nodded her head, and then she told the cabbie her home address. Before the car took off, Mary saw fresh tears were streaming down the pathologist’s pale face.

 

Once completely alone in the street, Mary texted John to let him know that she had made sure Molly got safely into a cab, and that she herself would go home now.

 

She then looked for her other cell phone, the one John didn't know about. She sent another text with her location and some instructions, and then put the cell phone back in the hidden pocket inside her purse.

 

Within five minutes a black car picked her up. And the dimly lit street remained quiet and deserted for the rest of the night.

 

* * *

 

The woman pretending to be Mary Morstan let herself inside her flat with a sigh. She took off her expensive Burberry cotton parka and hung it on the coat rack by the door. With another sigh, she took off her gloves and put them away one in each of the parka’s pockets. Her mother had taught her that. _When you get home after outdoors play time, you take off your coat and Mummy hangs it on the coat rack by the door. And then you take off your gloves and Mummy puts them away in the coat’s pockets, so next time you go outside to play they will be there and you won’t forget them._  She had not seen her mother in almost thirty years, but the habit persisted.

 

She took off her boots and slipped on the comfortable ballet-like silky shoes that she wore at home. She loved walking barefoot around the flat. The ballet shoes were the closest thing that she had access to in winter. Someone in her position could not afford to fall ill (she did not get paid sick leave, after all - not for a cold, anyway.)

 

Mary hung her scarf on the coat rack, too, and her purse. And all the while she knew she was not alone.

 

If there was something to be said about all the women she’d posed as in the last fifteen years or so, it was that none of them had been easily intimidated. They all had been, to different degrees, the intimidating ones. None of them had ever been made uncomfortable easily, either. Her Mary Morstan persona was not the exception, nor was the man that sat on a chair by the bookshelves waiting for her, as if they had a standing appointment for tea that she was simply late to.  

 

He looked at her, pensive and quiet. And unlike others that put their heads down cowardly in his presence, she held her gaze.

 

“Bold move coming here uninvited. What if John had been with me?”

 

She graciously sat down on the chair in front of the one her guest was occupying. For a moment she recalled the day he offered her a job, and how different both their life circumstances were back then. For one thing, she had not sold her soul yet.

 

“I knew you were alone,” he said. “You are not the only one who can have people followed.” And then: “I told you Molly Hooper was no one to be concerned about.”

 

If the scolding affected Mary in the slightest, she didn't let it show. She was well aware of who she was talking to: this was no man to display emotions in front of. Everything she did and said could, and would, be held against her if he had a say in it.

 

The accusations were true, though. She had Molly followed. It was a decision she had made after the afternoon she joined her and John for tea. John and her had not walked in on Sherlock and Molly by mere coincidence or bad luck. She had insisted they went to Baker Street instead of her own flat because someone from her network texted her saying Molly Hooper was headed there. As soon as she got that information, she had told John she was tired and that perhaps they should call it a night and get going, and why didn't they go to his place for a change since they always went to hers and she had not been to his yet. They had arrived just in time to find Molly and Sherlock kissing each other breathless, and she wondered in what state of undress they might have found the detective and the pathologist if the cab they had taken there had had to wait at one red light or two, or if she hadn't talked John so quickly into going to Baker Street.

 

“All resources used to keep an eye on her are my own. I am not using any of your men if that's what worries you. I have my own people,” said Mary simply.

 

“Yes, I know. Your own network.” Her companion clicked his tongue in what was unmistakable amusement before he added: “Not unlike Sherlock’s.”

 

“But my usage of it is to keep tabs on people I care about,” Mary explained. “And that is unlike Sherlock.”

 

The expression on the man's face changed, and she immediately realized she shouldn't have said that. She had shown emotion. She had let him see her. She didn't like it when he saw her. No one did. He saw much more than he let on, and one never knew when he'd use it against you. If knowledge was indeed power, the man sitting in front of her was a very powerful one.

 

“You are cros at him.” It wasn't a question. He was sure of what he had just seen in her eyes, though he still was deducing the reason behind it. “Why? Because he doesn't return the girl’s affection? Is this what you understand as sorority?”

 

He wasn't making fun of her. His curiosity was genuine. But she had no interest in explaining why she thought Sherlock Holmes used his network for several things other than keeping an eye on those he cared about. She knew it because they had prepared her for this mission and briefed her on all subjects involved. It was a fact that he used his network for cases only, as simple as that. She wasn't being petty or resentful with the man out of loyalty to a friend - Molly wasn't her friend to begin with, she'd seen the woman a handful of times. She did care for her, though.

 

And she knew that Sherlock cared for her, too.

 

“He does.”

 

The man looked perplexed for a moment. Almost at a loss. The expression felt out of place in his face, since he always looked so sure about everything. It was odd, seeing him lost. It almost made her wonder if she had been mistaken when she decided a man like that couldn't possibly be human.

 

“Does what?” he asked.

 

“Return her affection, naturally,” Mary said very calmly.

 

Her guest remained silent for a moment. She could have sworn she heard the wheels turning in his head.

 

“Don't feed yourself lies, dear Rosie,” he advised her. “He doesn't. He couldn't, even if he wanted to. He doesn't know how. Doesn't do well with emotions.”

 

Mary ignored the usage of her birth name. She didn't like being called that. She preferred to adopt whatever identity she was living under at the moment. With a job like hers, the present was the only thing you had, and her present right now was Mary. Just like one time it had been Josie, or Grace, or the Hungarian-American tattoo artist. She guessed he liked calling her Rosie because he knew it shook her up. She had thrown up after the first time he had done so (luckily for her, she had kept it together until after they parted.)

 

She really, really hated him sometimes.

 

“And yet John Watson is my mission,” she said, slightly amused. “How come, if Sherlock does not possess the ability to feel human emotions?”

 

“John Watson is different,” the man said for what felt the millionth time since they had started this. “He is his friend. He is like family. Perhaps he's the only family Sherlock considers his own. Him and maybe the housekeeper…”

 

“Landlady,” she corrected him. “She's not their housekeeper. And I don't agree with you.”

 

It was the man's turn to look amused.

 

“A Sherlock Holmes expert now, are we?”

 

“A mere observer,” said Mary. “Better at it than you ever were, mind you,” she teased him, knowing what a sore spot she would be rubbing on with those words. “And, unlike you, I understand human emotions. And Sherlock has the ability for them all, an ability greater than what anyone has ever given him credit for.”

 

He didn't believe her, of course. She would have had a better chance at convincing him the sky was pink.

 

“You don't say.”

 

“He cares about her,” she insisted. “He returns her feelings. I dare say he is in deeper than she is. He is sicker over her than she is over him.”

 

Mary knew what she had seen, and she knew a lot of details she had been weaving together ever since she had started to date John. She was very observant; it would have been very difficult to do a job like hers without a good understanding of the complexity of human emotions and how they worked. And where everything else could fail, she knew how Sherlock had looked like the moment John and her found him with Molly in the kitchen. And she knew how he had looked like when she had left Baker Street earlier that night: sad, desperate, lost, confused.

 

In love.

 

“You are romanticizing this whole affair,” he said. “And you still haven't answered my question: why are you having Molly Hooper followed?”

 

“As I mentioned to you the last time you cared to knock on my door instead of simply breaking and entering in my absence, Dr. Hooper is ill.”

 

“Anorexia, you said...”

 

“Anorexia. Bulimia. Depression. A plethora of things, really.”

 

“You truly are enjoying this whole Miss Mary Morstan mental health nurse/college professor facade,” he accused her.

 

“I do have formal training as a mental health nurse,” she reminded him. “And, unlike you, I do care about people regardless of whether they are useful to my schemes.”

 

If he could make his accusations, then she could and would make hers, too.

 

“It's true, I don't,” he admitted. “And neither should you.” And then, for the third time he asked Mary the same question:  “Why are you having her followed? She is no one to us.”

 

She made a conscious effort not to grit her teeth at this. It was people like this man and Sherlock, that prided themselves on being so good at using others when they needed them to toss them aside later like an old pair of shoes, that made people like Molly feel they were worth nothing. It was people like them that made them feel they were no one, that they were undeserving of respect, and love, and affection.

 

She really, really hated him sometimes.

 

“Stop saying that,” she scolded him. “She is someone. She is a person. She needs help.”

 

“You can't get her the help she needs,” he said, clearly annoyed that apparently it was up to him to break to a five year old the sad news that she couldn’t take all the stray kittens home. “And whether she does get it or not, it's irrelevant to us,” he insisted. “It's her problem, not ours.” And then, a little bit more harshly: “You are not getting paid to play best friends with Molly Hooper.”

 

“I already told you all resources are my own…”

 

He interrupted her:

 

“I don't care about resources. I care about where your head is.”

 

She was not about to admit it, but she cared about where her head was. Most of all, she cared about where her heart was.

 

She really, really, really hated the man sitting across from her sometimes.

 

Clever as always, Mary decided to change the subject and make him look at things from a different point of view: hers. Or the point of view she wanted him to believe was hers, anyway.

 

“You know why I insisted John and I went to Baker Street tonight after our date?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Someone from my network texted me to let me know Molly had left her flat and was headed to Baker Street. Do you know what happened when John and I arrived?” Again, she didn’t wait for an answer. “Sherlock Holmes was kissing her breathless and rubbing himself on her leg like some stray dog in heat.”

 

If this shocked her companion, he did not let it show.

“It proves nothing more than that, contrary to what some believe, he's got sexual urges normal for a physically healthy male his age…”

 

She clicked her tongue, annoyed and feeling tired all of a sudden.

 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, enough with your shit!” The change in her manners did not startle him. He was used to her outbursts. He’d known her for a long time and knew what to expect from her. She knew she could speak to him like this, had spoken to him like this several times before in fact, and he’d never taken offense. They had had discussions much more heated than this one. It was often that they did not see eye to eye. “Is it so hard for you to believe that he can have a heart with room in it for more people than John and Mrs. Hudson?”

 

“I know he hasn't.” He sounded very sure of his stand. “That’s the rare thing about Sherlock Holmes. That’s his weakness: his heart has got room for one or two people, and so that makes him even more vulnerable.”

 

They had had this conversation before, when it all had begun. Mary remembered it very well.

 

“Molly Hooper is not in his heart. Sexual desire and sentiment are not necessarily linked,” he said, as if she needed to be reminded. “One can exist without the other. And in this case, the former does exist without the latter.”

 

She opened her mouth to speak, but he kept on talking:

 

“I am sorry to disappoint you, but Sherlock Holmes is not the tragically misunderstood and misjudged prince charming you are making him out to be. And your mission for now, dear, is Dr. Watson. And you are doing beautifully,” he reassured her. “It would be a shame if we had to take you out it due to a poor performance.” He wasn’t threatening her, no. He really did believe that it would be everybody’s loss if she had to be taken out of the mission. “You came to have this job highly recommended by no other than myself. It would not do any of us good to have you reassigned somewhere else because you got too involved with a subject that is not even part of the plan.”

 

Oh, if he only knew! What would he think if he found out that she had fallen in love with John? If he learned that, he himself would remove her from the mission. It was a good thing that he did not have all the knowledge in the world, she supposed. For someone that believed himself to be immensely powerful, he still lacked the ability to understand what went on inside people’s hearts. He certainly had no idea what was truly going on in hers. And that was good, because it bought her more time.

 

“You get to Watson, you get to Holmes.” Mary repeated the words she had been told several times since the mission had started. “That is what they want, right? That is what we want. Whomever gets to Watson gets to Holmes.” And then: “What if _he_ isn't his heart? What if it's someone else that has to burn?”

 

“You give the sexual act too much importance…”

 

He still didn’t get it. She’d have to spell it out for him.

 

“At first I had her followed because I felt sorry for her,” she admitted. “I wanted to help her. She is alone. She's got no one. She is sick. I wanted to check on her, make sure she does not cross a line, that she doesn't harm herself. You can call it sorority if you want. I asked John about her. I was curious. He mentioned things in the way John does. He's got no idea how many details can be found in his comments that he himself overlooks completely.” She went on explaining: “He mentioned how Sherlock is around her, how he is when they go to the morgue. He mentioned the things he says to her and how he says them…”

 

“I bet he is as delightful as he is to the rest of the world…”

 

“John says that when he talks about her to others he calls her _his_ pathologist. _His_ . Have you ever heard him call anyone _his_?”

 

It was another question she didn’t expect an answer to. But he gave her one anyway, for he would not simply sit there in silence and let her talk him into believing that Sherlock Holmes had feelings for someone other than his flatmate and his landlady.

 

“He likes to claim ownership on things,” he said, as if that settled the matter. “It doesn’t mean he cares about her anymore than he does for any of his material possessions. A pathologist at one of the top hospitals in the country to call his own? Of course he would like that.”

 

“I saw the look in his eyes when she left Baker Street a crying mess tonight after John and I interrupted them.” She hoped that offering him more details would help him understand why this was important, why Molly mattered. “There was caring, and wanting, and craving. And if he did not go after her it was because he saw the damage he’d done and did not want to cause her more harm. He cares about her,” she said. “If there is a heart to burn, Molly Hooper is the person to go after.”

 

The man shook his hand and, as he did so, stood up. His visit was about to come to an end, apparently. He had a habit of doing that: every time he decided the person in front of him was not worth his time anymore, he’d get up and leave. He always decided when a meeting started and when a meeting ended. Well, it was obvious that he had decided that this meeting was as good as over if he wasn’t going to get his former protegée to change her mind.

 

Mary rose, too.  

 

“I’m sorry to say I do not agree with you, Rosamund.” As if she needed to be reminded, he said for what had to be the millionth time: “John Watson is your mission.”

 

“Can’t it be both? If changes are needed, we’ll be ready.”

 

It was only logical, right? She didn’t understand how he could be so stubborn sometimes, so sure of himself. Did he honestly believe he was never mistaken? Was it possible that this man really believed he was always right and that those that didn’t see things the same way were simply wrong, nothing else to it?

 

Oh, she really hated him in moments like these.

 

The man walked to the door, and she walked with him. He didn’t need her to show him out, of course. He could get out of the flat just like he had gotten in, and no one would ever notice his presence or know he was ever there to begin with.

 

They both stopped at the door to say goodnight. They could argue, but they would never part in bad terms. That was not how their relationship worked.

 

“Don’t lose focus, Rosie dear,” he told her. “You know what happens when you lose focus. And we wouldn’t want that, now would we?”

 

He sounded almost patronizing.

 

“Carve these words into your brain: your mission is Watson. Leave Molly Hooper alone and out of it unless instructed otherwise,” he advised her.

 

“I really hate you sometimes, you know?” she said to him, a sad smile on her face. “Not that I’d expect you to understand.”

 

He looked at her in the eye, and if she didn’t know better she could have sworn that there was affection shining in them.

 

“I am everything you have left that is real.”

 

It wasn’t true. He believed it, though. Well, it was one more thing they did not agree on.

 

“You are hardly that. I never had anything to begin with.”

 

“You know you did.”

 

She opened the door. Now, it was her that wanted the meeting to be over.

 

“I suppose I’ll see you around, Sigmund,” she said calmly, indicating that their conversation had reached its end.

 

He understood that he had overstayed his welcome.

 

“You know you will,” was all he said.

 

And then, with an expression that resembled a grimace more than a smile, he walked down the corridor and called the lift. The woman pretending to be Mary Morstan closed the door to her flat before the ‘ding’ that announced its arrival was heard. By the time she made her way to the window that overlooked the street, her brother had already gotten inside the car that waited for him outside and was on his way to God knew where.

 


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

She often read about them. Phobias. She had taken an optional seminar one summer in university: Fears, phobias and obsessions in the late-nineteenth century. It had been interesting, far more so than spending her free time deep in depression and mourning for the loss of her father.

 

The syllabus had appealed to a younger Molly immediately, history being one of the subjects she considered all professionals should know more about. After all, history is supposed to illuminate, to help us understand. And at the time, her future had been nothing if not dark.

 

She had recently lost someone she loved. Her father had made a great effort not to let it show how much death scared him - and _he did believe_ in the afterlife, whatever he imagined it was like. He had been a religious person - and didn’t they have faith and hope that there was much more than earthly existence?

 

Mr. Hooper had believed there was something else after all biological functions sustaining a living organism ceased, and yet he had been scared. And Molly had seen him. It had just been once, and Mr. Hooper had not even realized that his daughter was sensing that nothing was as fine as he wanted her and his wife to think. But she had spotted the fear, the sadness.

 

She’d never forgotten The memory still haunted her, and from time to time she saw some similarities - the same fear, the same sadness - staring back at her when she stood in front of a mirror. Her brown eyes, so much like her mother’s, would look right back at her with that heavy sense of loneliness Mr. Hooper had had prior to his passing.

 

Perhaps because death was a journey you embarked on alone.

 

That was one of the things Molly Hooper feared the most. Not death - not her own, anyway. Monophobia. The fear of being alone.

 

What fears did others suffer in silence? What else did her father fear? Death couldn't just be it. It probably was the most common one, though. One’s own death and that of others. The ones you love. Molly had always been very anxious about her parents dying, ever since she'd been a very small child. It was the very first fear she remembered having. Omnipresent, like an invisible shadow hovering over her. It didn’t matter that her teachers or other adults explained her mother had probably been held up running an errand: if her mother was five minutes late picking her up at school, Molly’s little chest and throat would tighten as if a hand were clutching them and she’d feel nauseated. Worry and fear made her sick, but she was too young to know that fighting the nausea wouldn’t do her any good. Now as an adult, she knew that it was much better to let the vomit wash her clean from the inside, and that every time she felt tears pricking her eyes as the muscles in her stomach contracted, right before the upper esophageal sphincter relaxed, it meant relief was coming.      

 

Yes, thanatophobia had been Molly Hooper’s very first encounter with fear and anxiety. She had not known the exact name at the time: she had just only been a terrified, very anxious girl that fought the urge to cry and be sick every time one of her parents was late to pick her up from school.

 

Well, death was a common fear people had, she supposed. But what about things that were not so obvious or cliché? What about those other fears Molly herself had that seemed so ridiculous to her she navigated them alone trying not to make a peep for fear (and how ironic that was) she would be ridiculed over them? What about the fears that were so paralyzing they brought worse ailments on you? The fact that humankind had survived century after century in spite of its proclivity to let the most unthinkable things terrorize them…

 

Odd and quirky as she often was seen by others, phobias interested Molly Hooper and she knew a lot about them. It wasn't strange for her to think of her own reactions to things in terms of that -fear-, and whether it fell into the categories of 'common’ or 'irrational.’ She wrote her blog post under the pseudonym 'Atelophobic’ (the fear of imperfection), and lately she had been thinking a great deal about her relationship with atychiphobia (the fear of failure.) But it was another interesting fear that occupied her thoughts on that cold December day when she sat down in front of the computer, heating pad on her stomach below several layers of woolen sweaters (she had cramps again.) 

 

 

 

> **December 1**
> 
>  
> 
> **Philemaphobia**
> 
>  
> 
> I have not eaten anything solid in five days.
> 
>  
> 
> I have not eaten anything solid since the last time he kissed me.
> 
>  
> 
> I don’t want the lingering taste of his kisses to be tainted by vomit.
> 
>  
> 
> Has he won, then? If I am quitting the only source of true, blissful pleasure that I had left, does it mean that he’s proven to me he’s much more in control that I am or ever was?
> 
>  
> 
> He’s given me something to crave that makes me lose focus and forget about what’s important. If that was his plan all along, then I am sad to admit he has succeeded. He’s distracted me from my experiment, the path to reaching a level of perfection he believes only he is worthy of.
> 
>  
> 
> He regrets he’s let me in on his secret when he confided in me that he doesn’t eat when he is working. He got scared when he realized what precious insight he had involuntarily shown me (I know he would never enlighten me like this on purpose, although sometimes I let myself get carried away and wish that were the case.) He saw that I was getting too close to perfection. He got scared I was catching up to him. Perhaps he was too tired to run away from me, or too uninterested in making the effort, so he decided to slow me down.
> 
>  
> 
> And so he did.
> 
>  
> 
> The pleasure I used to feel every time I vomited is now gone, replaced by the fear and anxiety of his taste being washed away by time and the little saccharine I ingest to keep from fainting. What will I have left if (when) that happens? It’s barely there as it is. I fear it will not last forever. I _know_ it will not last forever.
> 
>  
> 
> I also fear what might happen if he kissed me again. It’s stupid, right? He already made me crumble down. He already won. Why would he kiss me away? But then again I am stupid. And I have an awful tendency for wishful thinking - and apparently masochism, too. I fear being kissed by him again. I fear the addiction. I fear the consequences. I fear the burning sensation of his lips on mine that haunts me like a ghost - it’s almost as if our mouths are still clashing, touching, but they are not. I know it will never happen again, and it should be a relief, right? One should be relieved the thing that one fears will not happen to them. And yet I am anxious, and nervous, and sad. Because I wish that my fear did come true. Because when it comes to Sherlock Holmes, I am a masochist.
> 
>  
> 
> He’s taken from me, like he always does. He’s taken the pleasure, the bliss, the sense of peace that I found in inducing myself to vomit. Should I just do it and end it already, wash away the taste once and for all and get back what he took away from me? Should I put an end to these contradictory fears by deciding myself that the taste of victory and perfection is far sweeter than the taste of his kisses?
> 
>  
> 
> I know my thoughts and feelings make no sense. I know these are just ramblings with no end and no beginning. I feel so off balance, so out of control right now. It is his fault. But then again it is also mine. I let him do this to me. I let him walk all over me and destroy part of my experiment. I will have to work so hard to get back to how things used to be. A part of me doesn’t regret it, a part of me wishes I still didn’t know what it is like to feel my every bone nestled against his body, his lips on mine, his hands all over me in desperation.
> 
>  
> 
> Sometimes it is as if I was walking on this very thin, almost invisible line no one can perceive but me - and there are occasions even I’m not sure whether it’s actually there or if it only exists in my mind. I think I’ve been walking on it for quite some time now, but lately I’ve begun tripping to one side or the other.
> 
>  
> 
> I don’t know where I stand. One minute I feel one way, and the next it’s as if everything’s changed. No. Not changed. When something changes, what was there in the beginning is still present sometime, in whatever shape or form it’s taken now. I guess the correct way to put this is that one minute I feel one way, and then the next everything is different and the emotion previously felt is nowhere to be found. Vanished. As if it had never existed. As if the one I'm currently feeling were the only one I've ever felt, so intense and overwhelming there is no space left for anything else.
> 
>  
> 
> There are moments where it’s as though there was not enough space left for me, either. And all that’s there for me to wish is to be consumed for whatever taste of his still remains, until it disappears and I with it.
> 
>  
> 
> **Posted by Atelophobic on ‘Anatomy of an empty stomach.’**

 

 

Writing had been, as always, a relief - perhaps the only relief she had left. Or at least she felt better, lighter -much, much lighter- when she hit the ‘post’ button and saw all those words, small and black like little ants in a perfect rows, out there to be shared with the people that now regularly read her. They knew a lot about her, those strangers hiding behind a username like Molly herself was - they knew her even more than people she had contact with everyday.  

 

It was liberating. It was freeing. She could be herself in every line she wrote, purely and unapologetically. 'Anatomy of an empty stomach’ was a safe, sacred place, and Atelophobic was every little thing mousy, useless, stupid, good-for-nothing, stuttering Molly Hooper didn't dare show to the flesh and bone world that surrounded her. Being herself didn't work in that world - her lonely flesh and bones were not wanted there, they did not fit. Never had. Probably never would.

 

But she fit there, in a virtual world where she enjoyed all the benefits of anonymity and was ‘heard.’ She had found a voice, and when she wrote she didn't stutter and the words flowed freely and uninterrupted. Molly did not only take notes on the progress of her experiment now: she could vomit on the vast, infinite blank space that the world wide web offered, and she got to be 'listened to’ by others. Others that weren't judgemental. Others that appreciated the effort she was putting into an experiment that would result in her becoming perfect. Light. Unattached from the mundane needs that tied and enslaved those who give too much importance to the flesh and bones that host their minds. These people only knew Atelophobic through her writing, and they chose to visit her blog and read her, and leave comments, solely based on the connection and affinity they felt for her words. They encouraged her, and gave her advice, and she in return did the same for others. For the first time she felt she was part of something.

 

She had been thrown off and worried the first time someone had liked and commented on her blog entries. No one had read 'Anatomy of an empty stomach’ those first months. That feeling had passed, though, and now she looked forward to seeing comment alerts. She looked forward to the other bloggers’ posts, too. It was, as everything in Molly Hooper's life at that time, some sort of compulsion. She checked for the alerts constantly, waited for them eagerly. Those days after the episode in the morgue's hallway and the kitchen of 221B Baker Street, she had only found some kind of stability and comfort in her little, virtual written world and their equally virtual habitants.

 

She was having a hard time dealing with anxiety and mood swings the night she posted that entry about philemaphobia. Molly was feeling dizzy, and nervous, and all over the place. She was there, in her apartment, stomach cramps worse than ever, very conscious of her body, her bones, her skin - but she also feel as if she were not really there or anywhere else. It was an inexplicable sensation.

 

Sleep eluded her, but Molly was fine with that; lately she woke up with terrible headaches if she slept for more than an hour or two. She grabbed some rest here and there, but she didn't really feel she needed a normal sleeping pattern anymore. Not since the experiment had started showing its brilliant results - an achievement she could easily lose if she didn't find a way to solve the chaos Sherlock had set loose just to play with her head and ruin things for her. She asked to work night shifts - she appreciated the silence, the quietness all around her: the rest of the hospital was a lot more like the morgue during the nights, and so Molly didn't feel so isolated. So different from the rest. She slept little during her time off in the day, and read blogs and replied to the comments she got on hers instead. It also helped her keep her mind off dark thoughts about how she was giving it all away thanks to that bastard, and how much she wished she could just be selfish and proud and go stick two fingers down her throat and let the pleasure of vomiting claim her back.

 

But no, she didn't want to wash away the taste of his with vomit. Or whatever she thought was left of the taste of his. She was a traitor to herself. She was a traitor to her experiment.

 

Her readers seemed to understand what she was going through. They supported Atelophobic in this difficult time. Some of them even gave her advice or shared stories about how they had gone through the same. It comforted her.

 

In her loneliness, she felt less alone.

 

 

> **December 2**
> 
>  
> 
> **hungerforthought** on **Philemaphobia**
> 
> I feel like this sometimes, too. I actually wrote about my confused emotions on this post not so long ago. If mood swings are frustrating and annoying, the ‘black-and-white’ thinking is even worse. I hope you can sort all this soon and start feeling like yourself again, although I know it is a lot easier said than done.

 

 

> **Penny** on **Philemaphobia**
> 
> Reading this, it reminded me of how things used to be with this girl I dated back in uni. It was very difficult for me to not fall into the vicious cycle that 'black-and-white’ thinking represents. One moment she was the best thing that had ever happened to me in my young life, but then the next second she did or say something that didn't live up to my expectations and I felt completely devastated and convinced that she'd be the end of me if I didn't pull away from her and her toxic ways. It was all in my head, of course, and I eventually drove her away. There is so much a person can take, and this girlfriend couldn't deal with my having specifically things such as answers and reactions from her 'scripted’ in my head and being disappointed if reality did not match what I had in my mind. One day I wanted her, couldn't live with her, but then I didn't even know who I was- let alone what or who I wanted. Like someone else said in an above comment, I hope you can sort this out soon.

 

 

> **December 3**
> 
>  
> 
> **imeatingmyself** on **Philemaphobia**
> 
> Don't let him steer you away from your goals. Don't let him take from you the joy that finding perfection is. No one is really worth quitting your goals for. At the end of the day, we only have ourselves and the things we accomplish. I know because I've learned this the hard way. People will say they love you, they will say they care about you, but those who come between you and what makes you happy, they don't. They just don't. Anyone who tries to sabotage something that makes you feel better doesn't really care about you or your well-being. It is hard, I know it is, but at the end of the day you will be so much happier and satisfied with yourself if you defend what you believe in against those who judge because they don't understand or care enough to make an effort and understand. It sounds like this person is trying to take away your right to choose and take pleasure in the choices you make. It really sounds like you could draw a lot of pleasure from choosing to write that kind of people off your life if they will only try to manipulate you for manipulation’s sake.

 

 

> **December 5**
> 
> **Kelly** on **Philemaphobia**
> 
> Wow. First time reading your blog, and the first entry I lay eyes on hits so close to home! One of my friends mentioned your blog to me. She said some of the topics you wrote about may interest me. I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder a year and a half ago, and ever since then I’ve been searching online to read the point of view of others going through similar things. This is one of those posts that just leave me speechless because every single word you’ve written makes me think of how I am, and how I’ve always been. ‘Black-and-white’ thinking is something that I have too much first hand experience with, sadly. But I’d never read something I could relate to on so many levels before. It even makes me want to start a blog on my own and write about it. I will go read the rest of your entries now!

 

 

> **December 9**
> 
> **inmychaos** on **Philemaphobia**
> 
> Sometimes I don’t know where I stand, either. One minute things are one way, and then maybe in a second everything changes within me- and maybe everything around me hasn’t changed one bit. I feel this way a lot. Thank you for putting it into words. I had never thought of it in terms of ‘black-and-white’ thinking like some of the other readers have commented. It’s good to be able to at least name it.

 

 

> **December 18**
> 
> **stardust** on **Philemaphobia**
> 
> I understand what you say about feeling as if your only source of pleasure has been taken away from you. I think you will eventually find it in yourself to purge again- I know that I did. I have often had to stop vomiting for lengthy periods of time, and in those occasions I discovered that there are other ways you can feel both satisfaction and control when everything else seems to be falling apart. I recommend you visit **cuttingthroughthepain**. She is lovely, and I am sure her posts can help you understand more about the different ways you can reach pleasure through means other than throwing up. It's worth reading!

 

 

She’d reread her favourite ones from time to time, like she imagined she’d reread texts from a special someone if there was anyone. Texts from him, if he sent any. How stupid, right? What would he send to her? What did he have to say to her? The little game he had gotten her trapped into spoke for itself, very loudly and very clear. The consequences of his schemes spoke for themselves, too. Louder. Clearer. He had nothing to say to her.

 

No one special had anything to say to her, except for the kind women that read her blog. The kind women that knew of the contents of her heart, and that sometimes shared with Molly the contents of theirs.

 

Christmas was less than a week away when she got the comment from **stardust**. Almost a month had passed since the night Sherlock had kissed her, and they had not seen each other again. He hadn’t been to St. Bart’s, that she knew of. If he had, he’d made sure it wasn’t during one of her shifts.

 

She had not thrown up again either, but not for lack of trying. She had tried, tears streaming down her face while she coughed so violently her whole body shook and spasmed until she ended up balled up on the bathroom floor. Emetophobia. The fear of throwing up. She had become afraid of the thing that once calmed and soothed her. All because of him, and her ridiculous idea that vomiting would wash away the memory of his feel and taste.

 

Stupid Molly. Stupid, useless, good-for-nothing, idiot, ugly Molly. Sherlock was better, always better, far more perfect at this game. He had her where he wanted her- did he even want her? He probably didn’t. He didn’t care. He had shown her what she needed to know, and then he’d performed one of his disappearance acts, gone to mind people and things more important than she’d ever be to him, or anyone else for that matter.

 

And so she was left even more alone and unsatisfied in her loneliness. A traitor to her own experiment, unable to perform one of its key aspects. No vomiting meant less eating. Less eating meant she couldn’t follow the meal plan to the letter. Not following the meal plan to the letter meant less nutrients. And less nutrients meant more headaches and dizziness (although she didn’t mind those much, for there was a certain enjoyment in the feeling of being almost detached from her body every time she thought she was about to faint.)

 

He had fucked up with her. And, worst of all, he had fucked up her experiment.

 

And she had let him. That was the very worst part.

 

She had let herself down and let him walk all over her.

 

Stupid, good-for-nothing, idiot thing that she was.

 

Molly had the day off on December 18, so she was home nursing the now frequent stomach cramps while she read through the comments on her blog. She was about to click on the link **stardust ** had recommended a few hours ago (she lived in Australia, so her day started earlier than Molly’s.) But a little, chirping sound interrupted her.

 

A text alert.

 

She didn’t feel like fishing her phone out of her handbag to check it. She knew it wasn’t from anyone at St. Bart’s- if they needed her, they would phone like they often did. Molly supposed it could be a text from Mary- the older woman had been randomly texting her for the last couple of weeks, asking whether she’d like to get together for coffee or tea or whatever non-Molly people that had friends did when they met up with their friends. She didn’t know, and she didn’t care. She didn’t want anyone’s pity, and she was convinced that Mary Morstan pitied her. Molly had spent a lot of time being other people’s charity projects: hand me downs from the church when she was a child when her parents had not always been able to afford clothes or toys. Molly was done with that.

 

But then a second later a heavy feeling settled in the pit of her (empty) stomach. Maybe Mary Morstan was not like the rest. Maybe she really did care. Was it so hard to believe that she deserved friendship? Was it so hard to believe that perhaps Mary did want to be her friend?

 

‘Black-and-white’ thinking again. That’s what Atelophobic’s readers had called it. One minute she resented Mary for reaching out a hand, and the next she was checking her phone to confirm that yes, the blonde college professor had sent her a message, and yes, this time Molly wanted to take the hand she was being offered.

 

> **9:15 am**
> 
> Hello Molly! I was wondering how you were doing. Fancy a cup of tea some time soon? Let me know. MM

 

She always signed her messages ‘MM’. The only time she had signed with her full name had been that first time she’d sent a text to Molly (she supposed John had given her her number? Or perhaps Molly herself had when they’d met for tea that one time? She couldn’t remember. Lately, she had trouble remembering some things.)

 

Would going out do her good? Maybe. She did have the day off and was starting to feel claustrophobic (another phobia for the list) inside her apartment. Perhaps Mary’s presence would prompt her to eat something solid, and then she would be able to finally throw up after almost a month. Feel the pleasure again, the relief washing over her from the inside.

 

It could be good for her experiment, forcing herself out of her home to attend a social gathering. If they had brunch, as women that had friends often did with said friends, there would be food. Mary would be concerned if Molly didn’t eat, and Molly didn’t want anyone else minding business that were her own. So she would eat to make sure Mary did not decide to stick her nose where it didn’t belong, and then she would have a not so empty stomach to empty by forcing two fingers down her throat.

 

It was a very good plan. It was good for the experiment.

 

She typed a reply:

 

> **9:18 am**
> 
> It’s my day off today. When can we meet? And where?
> 
>  
> 
> **9:20 am**
> 
> Great! I was thinking lunch? Or maybe tea? I have the day off as well. Let me know what works better for you. MM

 

Molly looked at the clock. She had been up for a couple of hours already- she was having trouble sleeping because of the cold, and the dizziness, and the cramps. (She couldn’t help but wonder if Sherlock’s secret for not needing too much sleep was also linked to his not eating when he was working, which was practically all the time.) She felt a surge of energy and decided that she could shower, get dressed, plait her hair and be ready to meet Mary around noon. A shock of excitement ran down her spine as she composed a reply to the other woman’s text: the sooner she saw Mary, the sooner she’d feel pressured to eat something solid again. The sooner she would be throwing up as if Sherlock Holmes had never kissed her.

  

> **9:21 am**
> 
> Let’s meet for brunch.

 

She had to hurry, get ready and out of the flat before she changed her mind abruptly. Molly closed her laptop, the blog recommended by **stardust** that she had been about to start reading before Mary texted her forgotten for the time begin.

 

Molly was already in the bathroom, peeling off layer after layer of woolen fabric and down to an oversized The Cure t-shirt when she heard the distant sound of a text alert. Mary’s reply. She saw it over an hour later. Lately, when she wasn’t at work she moved more slowly, with less precision. She enjoyed sitting in the bathtub, water cascading down over her. (She did not shower standing anymore, not after almost fainting in the tub a week ago.)

 

She knew that she’d draw the line- _this far, no further_ \- if the experiment ever compromised her work. She was making sure it didn’t happen. She drank diet coke constantly when on a shift because it had caffeine. She put Splenda under her tongue to make sure she didn’t faint. She was good at her job, she had a position at almost 32 year old that many 50 year old professionals wished they could be considered for. She was not going to risk that, she would not lose the only good thing she had accomplished. Her performance at St. Bart’s morgue and laboratory was, if anything, better than ever. The lack of food, the willing to succeed in her experiment, the lightness, the sight of perfection so close to her, closer every day- it all made her better, sharper, more focused.

 

Whether he had slipped up when he shared his secret with her or if he had done it intentionally to make her embark on an experiment he’d later try to destroy, he was right about one thing: the lack of food, an empty stomach, all of that made you more perfect at what you did, whatever that was. Solving crimes in his case. Cutting up dead bodies and establishing cause of death in hers.

 

(She told herself she took her time bathing now not because she had almost fainted and fell the week before, but because she enjoyed seeing and sensing and touching the results of the experiment in her body. And she did enjoy that. It tasted better than food ever had. It tasted better than throwing up. It almost, _almost_ tasted better than his kisses.)

 

It was a quarter to eleven when, already dressed and with her hair dried and plaited, she read Mary’s message:

 

> **9:25 am**
> 
> Wonderful! I just know the place! I’ll text you the address. Maybe later you can join me for some window shopping. I need to find a dress for the Christmas party at Baker Street. You can even shop for your own, since you’re on the guest list! See you soon! MM

 

* * *

 

The black car pulled up as the woman pretending to be Mary Morstan stepped outside the apartment building where she lived. It wasn’t that it was unexpected- quite the contrary. She knew Sigmund, knew how stubborn he could be. Like a dog with a bone. Curious thing, that man. Their time together as children had been cut short, but she could remember he had been shy, except when they played and he pretended to be an expert magician. Now there was nothing left of that shyness, and she couldn’t help but wonder how what had happened to them as kids had affected her older brother. What role it had played in shaping him into the person she was reunited with well into her adulthood.

 

She’d never asked about the years they’d spent apart. He didn’t offer any information, either. Things were just what they were. They had happened the way they happened, and Sigmund was not keen on revising the past or revisiting places that, as he said, were already left behind. The timid, curly haired boy she had last played magicians with the night before Christmas when she was about five had grown into a man that did magic tricks for a living, although a different kind than any of them would have imagined over thirty years ago. That was all she needed to know according to him.

 

Could she have searched, and found, better, more satisfying explanations? Yes, probably. But did she want to? No. As far as she too was concerned, the past was were it belonged: past them all. When you lead a life like hers, or in this woman’s particular case many lives at different points, you could not stop to reconsider, analyze or contemplate things. The moment it was over, it was over. Her childhood and life in the paternal home with the Siggy she had known and loved came to an end when she was five. She accepted it: it was over. What happened to her, the place she went to, the things she saw, they were over when she was recruited. She did not make a habit of looking back. For one thing, it was not healthy. And on the other hand, it did not add to the skills needed to survive, and she had made a choice long ago to only carry with her the things that guaranteed her survival mission after mission.

 

Sigmund would agree with her. After all, they’d been cut by the same pair of scissors, so to speak. Perhaps some things truly were in one’s blood, deeply rooted inside a person.

 

She got closer to the car as Sigmund rolled down the window. Mary did not make any indications that she would get inside the car, and he didn’t ask her to. He knew her very well, knew that her mind was made up. There was nothing he could do to make her cancel this particular engagement. This would not be a long conversation.

 

“Like a dog with a bone,” he commented.

 

“I could say the same about you.” She smiled at him. “I am just having brunch with a friend, Siggy. Nothing out of the world. People have brunch with friends all the time. I am people.”

 

“You are not any people,” he reminded her, a stern look on his features. “And you’re not meeting with any casual acquaintance.” He was practically talking between gritted teeth, and if Mary had not been leaning closer to the car’s window she wouldn’t have understood a word.

 

“Monitoring my messages, are we?”

 

“You’d think differently after all this time?”

 

She took a step back and looked down at the man sitting inside the car.

 

“I am meeting for brunch with an acquaintance, and that’s all there is to it,” Mary simply stated.

 

“It’s not any acquaintance if you two share a link with Sherlock Holmes.”

 

“I don’t share a link with Sherlock Holmes,” Mary said. “John does. And for the time being, it’s only John I share a link with.”

 

“Don’t take me for a fool, Rosamund,” Siggy replied in a tone that indicated he would not put up with his sister’s mind games for much longer.

 

“I don’t, Sigmund,” she promised. “I truly don’t. The fact that you are blind to emotion does not necessarily make you a fool in every other aspect. I don’t take you for one, rest assured. But the fact that you have a problem with me doing something as normal as hanging out with a friend speaks more about you than it does about me. And if you take this to a higher authority,” now it was her tone that indicated she would not put up with her brother’s games for much longer ” they would see it the way I do: John believes Mary is a very social person that makes friends easily, and now Molly is one of those friends. And soon Sherlock will be, too. You worry too much over things that aren’t so complicated for the rest of us. “But worry not dear brother,” she added, smiling “for it does not make you a fool in my eyes.”

 

And with that being said and a smile still on her face, she kept on walking in the opposite direction of the traffic. She knew Sigmund would never instruct his driver to make a U turn in a street where it wasn’t allowed. He was a fan of the law like that.

 

Sighing his frustration with his sister, he watched her walk down the street in the rear view mirror until she turned in a corner and disappeared, just like his hopes that Rosamund would leave Dr. Molly Hooper out of all of this.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder, graphic descriptions of vomiting, and self-harm.
> 
> At the end of this chapter you will also find a note about my mental health that mentions major depressive disorder and suicide, so trigger warning for that too.

She sometimes reread what she wrote. Not before posting, no- never before posting it. (If she did, nothing would get posted at all.) She didn’t read it immediately afterwards, either. It was too painful to do that. For Molly Hooper, writing was a sort of exorcism- a liberation process. If she read the words on the screen right after expelling them from her body it would be like pushing it back inside. (She didn’t eat her vomit after throwing up- why would she read her _verbal_ vomit after writing it?) Molly only reread posts when they were somewhat old. When she felt she had put enough distance between her and the chunk of her fragile, hurting heart she had just ripped off herself and thrown at the computer screen with as much violence as her fingers would allow her. She read them days, weeks later, as if to say 'all of this was inside you, and now it isn't anymore’. It made her feel even lighter. It was a weight she was no longer carrying before she had tore it off herself. In a way, to Molly Hooper writing really was a lot like throwing up. 'The (food, feelings) were making you heavier, more imperfect. But now you're rid of them (calories, thoughts). And so you are a little bit less all the things you hate to be. All the things everyone hates about you.’

 

After the mugging episode in May, Molly had bought a mobile phone much better fitted for browsing the web. They made them like small computers now. It was like carrying a substitute for her laptop in her pocket. She didn’t use it to write. (She was clumsy and had a hard time typing fast on that thing; besides, she liked to feel the keyboard under her fingers, hear the sounds it made- like an instrument, almost- as she poured out everything she had inside, everything that _weighed_.) But she felt comfortable using it as a reading device sometimes, especially when she was on the tube and found a seat. She had begun reading other people’s blogs on her phone, and sometimes she even liked some of the entries or the comments others left. It saved time: Molly came home every day after her long shifts at St. Bart’s feeling exhausted, and most of the time any energy she had left she’d rather use on writing to exorcise the heavy darkness within her. Reading on the phone also provided her with a mechanism not to fall asleep on the public transportation if she’d spent the night before tossing and turning, the delicious ache in her bones, the migraine and the cramps in her muscles keeping her from resting properly.

 

She read her post about philemaphobia on her way to meeting Mary for brunch. She had posted that one several days ago, and although she had read and replied to most of the comments readers have left, she had not paid much attention to the entry until that cold December day. She had written other entries after that one, mostly about changes she had noticed since beginning with the experiment, anything to keep her mind focused on what was important. Anything to try and regain control, to remember what she was supposed to be doing and why it was imperative that she did it. That she succeeded.

 

It was when she reread it that she she noticed, three stations before she had to get off the tube, that she had made a terrible, unforgivable mistake.

 

In that post, Molly Hooper had mentioned Sherlock Holmes by name.

 

_She had mentioned him by name._

 

Among all of those sentences she had written about how she didn’t want to eat and vomit because she was scared of losing the taste of him, the feel of his lips devouring her violently, she had mentioned his name and said she was a masochist when it came to him. The one mistake she had told herself she wouldn’t make, she had made it. And then she had let it there, out in the open, online, where anyone could see it (and a lot of people had, if the comments and likes the post’d gotten were anything to go by). Because she was an idiot, of course. Stupid, useless, good for nothing mousy Molly Hooper, always messing up somehow.

 

The chain reaction that followed was not one foreign to her. Her hands started shaking and her vision got blurry, the proof of her stupidity becoming but a blotch of black and white. Her heart beat rapidly against the fragile, thin bones of her ribcage, and it was as if the muscle contractions were filling her up completely. She could feel it everywhere: her head, her lungs, the back of her legs, her throat. Could the person sitting by her on the tube hear it, too? Had they noticed how stiff her body had gotten? (And yet she felt so weak, seconds away from fainting). Her auditory system shut off like it often happened when she experienced anxiety or stressed; the bloody Queen of England could have been there giving a speech and she wouldn’t have noticed.

 

The sound of the metro was drowned by the chaos within her. To any observer, Dr. Molly Hooper could have looked like a quiet, mousy young woman riding the tube, one more person out of the millions that took the London Underground every day, minding her own business, thinking about only God knew what, just like the rest of them. Who knew what went on in the minds of the other tube passengers, right? No one cared about that. No one stopped to think of that, for they were all too busy with whatever went on in their own minds.

 

An anxiety-fueled hell, that was what went on in Dr. Molly Hooper’s mind- not that anyone cared.

 

She was there, physically, on that semi-empty tube carriage. But she felt her mind detached from the hundred of nerve connections her body was made of. The state of her trembling, crumbling flesh and bones were, in that moment, a contrast to that of her mind that felt sharper, more focused.

 

She had to fix that mistake, and fast.

 

Her mind was running a mile per second as she logged in on her blog with clumsy fingers. As the page uploaded and she chose the ‘edit post’ option, she mentally went through the bloggers that had liked or commented the entry. Molly knew all of them by now- some of them she actually exchanged messages with frequently through the comment section. Some were from Australia, the United States, Italy, France, even some countries in Latin America, but she remembered no one being from the United Kingdom. That was good, right? They could knew of Sherlock Holmes, though, since he often was featured in social media and the news- but what were the odds that people from other countries kept up with what was going on with the criminal masterminds of the UK? They could google him though, right? But would they go to that extent? They had their own problems- Molly knew that they did, she read about them in great detail after all- and she doubted that they cared much about who she was a masochist for and in love with. They wouldn’t google him, right? If anyone reading was from the UK or knew who Sherlock Holmes was (he was, after all, the world’s only consulting detective) then maybe they thought she was talking in code, that she was calling the man she wrote about by a code name as to not reveal his true identity.

 

She changed the offending, revealing sentence and replaced the name by a simple ‘him’. The edited version finished uploading just a minute before the tube entered the station where Molly was supposed to get off.

 

The young pathologist was still shaking when she arrived at the place Mary had chosen for their get together. Anxiety was eating at her from the inside with a ferocity that could only be rivaled with the passion she felt for not eating at all. She had slipped up, and that mistake was, in her eyes, a terrible one. She was so stupid, so worthless. What an idiot! Thoughts of who could have seen the post, who could have found her blog by simply googling his name, would plague her mind for days to come.

 

Something else to eat at her whilst she focused on not eating.

 

* * *

 

“We should try on dresses for the Christmas party.”

 

Mary’s suggestion was met by ears that were barely listening to what she was saying. Molly nodded automatically, used as she was to agreeing to whatever people wanted so they would be pleased with her. Happy with her.

 

(Oh, the need to satisfy others’ needs before her very own because she thought that maybe that way she would be less alone, less lonely.

 

Liked.

 

Loved.)

 

But none of that was necessary with the blonde woman that sat in front of her.

 

Even if to Molly’s eyes the college professor was the embodiment of elegance and style, Mary had chosen a venue that was everything but posh. The young pathologist did not feel out of place in her plan clothes that were several sizes too big.

 

The fact that Molly was uncomfortable- something Mary noticed easily- had nothing to do with it.

 

She couldn’t get the incident with the blog entry out of her head. How many people had seen the name? Had someone googled it? Had anyone connected the dots and somehow found out that she was, in fact, referring to the world’s only consulting detective?

 

In the entry she mentioned they kissed. Surely they would not believe someone like Molly, someone that wrote the things she wrote and talked about the things she talked about, stood a chance at being kissed by a man like _the_ Sherlock Holmes.

 

(And yet he had kissed the air out of her lungs as if he’d been wanting to suffocate her, kill her - which perhaps he had).

 

If anyone truly noticed the name- and it was a possibility that no one did, since nowadays people skimmed through a text looking for important parts and rarely read every single word in it- they must have thought she was talking in code or using a metaphor.

 

_But what if_ he _googles himself?_

 

Every time that question popped into her head, Molly felt the urge to vomit. Well, there she had it, right? It was exactly what she wanted: to vomit again. To purge herself, exorcise herself from him, and his taste, and her fears of losing the memory of his lips pressing against hers and the way his mouth had fit so well with hers, some sort of wicked match meant to torture her until her last breath.

 

“There is this lovely little shop that just opened. It’s actually not far away from here.” Mary commented as she checked out the menu. The one the waitress had given Molly laid open in front of her. She was pretending to look at it, but her eyes saw nothing but big, blurry black spots.

 

Molly didn’t care about food, she didn’t care what she had as long as it was something that she could later force out of her system by pushing two fingers down her throat.  

 

“I think we could stop by and see what new dresses they have. It’s my first Christmas with John and I am hosting a party at his place, I’m going to be meeting some of his friends-”

 

Again Molly nodded, and something like a small laugh that sounded foreign coming from her _did_ come from her. It had happened to her before, this sense of detachment. Knowing her thin, malnourished body, all 206 bones were there, but her mind was not. Just like in the underground, when she’d been trying to edit the blog entry with shaky, clumsy fingers as people gone on and off the carriage, completely unaware of the chaos exploding inside the girl with those big, black circles under her doe-like eyes.

 

She felt adrift, and out of control on the inside. But, at the same time her body felt numb, and tired, almost ragdoll-like. Too exhausted to move. She was there physically, nodding quietly at whatever Mary was saying about Christmas parties and dress shopping and John. But inside her mind Molly was someplace else- stumbling around blinded by anxiety and stress, surrounded by the darkness brought in by the hopelessness and despair that had found a nest in her chest. She couldn’t even remember why she had agreed to meeting with Mary in the first place.

 

“I think we should order the Café Crespin brunch.”

 

The food. She was there because of the food. Because she would feel the pressure to eat in the presence of someone that had all but told her she knew there was something going on. (Not something bad- her experiment wasn’t bad. Just _something_. Something that others wouldn’t understand, Mary included, even if she could see it and its effects. Even if she could see Molly’s changes and progress. Mary had not mentioned a thing about the last time they had seen each other, and for that Molly was thankful.)

 

Molly had gone there with a plan, a brilliant plan to get back on the right track after allowing Sherlock Holmes’ fucking mind games to lead her astray. She’d eat to prove Mary wrong, pretend to enjoy every mouthful, and comment how wonderful the food and drinks were. And then the toxicity of what she’d ingested would be so great, so impossible to tolerate, that she would naturally vomit, purge herself, get rid of Sherlock’s taste, go back to how things were before when she found pleasure in riding herself of her inner turmoil by vomiting.

 

Go back to the experiment.

 

The waitress came back to take their orders, and Molly agreed to whatever it was Mary wanted. The woman had commented on this and that about what the Café Crespin brunch included, and cheery words had come out of Molly’s mouth in a voice that was her own but that she didn’t recognize as such.

 

(It sounded almost too cheery. Too excited. Mary didn’t buy it for a second. Molly didn’t care, didn’t notice, because she was too convinced that there was no way she wasn’t handling all that perfectly. In Molly’s head, she could prove Mary wrong and convince her that whatever she believed she had seen that night on Baker Street was not true.)

She was anxious because she was going to eat real food, solid food, for the very first time in _days_ and with the knowledge that her body would expel it within minutes of its ingestion whether she pushed two fingers down her throat or not. Molly knew that what she was going to do consisted of surrendering her willpower to her own body, the host and subject of her experiment. She wouldn’t have a say in this, it wouldn’t be her decision to make.

 

The smell of other patrons’ french toast and scrambled eggs was making her nauseous. She could hardly wait to eat so she could later throw up.

 

When the waitress arrived with their order, Mary interrupted what she was saying (about what, Molly had no idea) and commented on how delicious it all looked. Molly agreed in the same way she’d been agreeing to every one of Mary’s comments for the past half hour, and then they both ‘digged right into’ their plates.

 

“I think I just know the right dress for you. For the Christmas party,” Mary clarified, as if she hadn’t been going on and on about it for thirty minutes.

 

Molly simply nodded, helping herself to more toast and jam. She helped herself to some more fruit and bacon, too. None of it tasted particularly different to her- it all blended in her mouth before she swallowed without even savouring it. There was no difference, it was all the same. Food, Poison. She didn’t care for it on the way down, she only cared that it got out before it was digested. She only wanted to feel the pleasure wash over her again, and the regained control reassuring her that she had not fucked up her experiment because of Sherlock Holmes.

 

“I hope they still have it when we stop by later. It's gorgeous, believe me!” the blonde woman kept on talking. “Black and strapless and with… Molly are you feeling all right?” The look on Mary's face had morphed into one of concern.

 

Molly had eaten too much and too fast, and now her stomach was doing quite the number on her. She hadn't counted on it, hadn't made the right calculations apparently ( _stupid, idiot Molly, distracted from the experiment by the mistake in the blog post and the probabilities of Sherlock Holmes googling himself and finding it_ ) and now she doubted she'd be able to excuse herself quietly and make it to the bathroom to throw up like she had initially planned.

 

She had to be sick now.

 

It all happened too fast. She opened her mouth to blurt out some excuse and go to the loo- but it was vomit that came out of it, not words. Everything she had just eaten like a desperate castaway for the first time back on firm land after months of starvation, all of that was now on the floor of the small café. Right at Molly's feet, sticky and warm and the color of tea, was the result of her attempt at retaining control.

 

A failed attempt, no doubts about it.

 

The pleasure she felt when the food left her body paled in comparison to the mortification and anxiety behind what had just happened. She had just thrown up in the middle of a café full of people and missed Mary's feet by the skin of her teeth. And now not only her friend(?) was worriedly asking her what was wrong and _Do you feel better now,_ and _Let me help you clean up, dear, let's go to the loo_ , but also a couple of staff members were hovering over her and asking _Would you like a glass of water_ and _Is there anything we can do for you,_ or _Would you like us to call a doctor_. And then _Oh dear the poor thing, look at how pale she is, look how she's shivering_ from the people at some of the other tables, and _I hope it wasn't anything she ate here_ from a table that sat a group of particularly posh-looking women.

 

Mary led her to the bathroom with the patient and concern a mother would show her sick child. Molly's vision was blurry and her whole anatomy was a shacking mess, a voice inside her head screaming at her what a stupid, useless, disgusting little bag of trash she was.

 

_You couldn't even hold it until you could excuse yourself and go to the loo like you used to. You've lost all fucking control to Sherlock Holmes. You gave it to him on a silver plate and betrayed yourself, ruined your own experiment. Look what it's got you. He's got you where he wants you: admitting to yourself that you are worthless and stupid and that you've no control_.

 

She wanted to scream at the voice as Mary led her to the bathroom. She wanted to tell it off, tell it how wrong it all was. Tell it to shut up. Scream at it until her throat was raw like it used to be when the experiment worked like a Swiss clock. When she controlled things. When she controlled her fucking own body and herself.

 

But she didn't.

 

While she wiped her mouth and fought the dizziness, Molly tried to speak to Mary and sound as casual as possible. As if everything were fine.

 

“Must’ve been something I ate last night,” a small laugh escaped her. “And then I ate too fast just then,” Well, that wasn't exactly a lie. “Everything was so delicious, I guess I just couldn't help myself.” And then another fake laugh.

 

The way Mary was looking at her reminded Molly once more of a mother. She didn't want to think of her own mother, the one she missed so much, but there was something about Mary Morstan that gave off too strong a motherly vibe not to compare her with one. It was the look Mrs. Hooper had when Molly's father told a white lie to spare her feelings, perhaps on a burnt shepherd's pie or a stash of cookies that hadn't turned out so well. It was the look of someone that knew you were not telling the truth, or at least that you were partially lying by omission.

 

“It was not something you ate yesterday, Molly,” Mary said with a sigh. “Perhaps going out for brunch was not the best idea,” she thought out loud as Molly washed her hands. “Let me get the check and then I can see that you find a cab home if you'd like.”

 

Molly should have said yes to that. Otherwise she wouldn't have ended with _the dress_. She should have agreed to hail a cab and go home to hide from a functioning, useful world where she didn't belong because she was so helpless, so stupid. A failure. She should have taken the rest of the day to mourn her experiment and then think of ways to get control back and save it, start it up again, reach perfection through it like she was supposed to from the beginning.

 

But no. She didn't do that. Stupid, useless Molly wanted to fit in. She wanted to belong. She wanted to prove the voice in her head wrong. _Look, I can have friends. I can go shopping for a dress like all the pretty girls. I can spend an afternoon talking about designer handbags and shoes. I can be like the rest of them, I am no longer the outcast._

 

And so she said to Mary that they should go check out that shop she'd mentioned and try on dresses and talk more about the Christmas party. Because that was what normal people did, right? People like Mary, who was intelligent and kind and beautiful and treated Molly as someone worthy. Mary, who told Molly how beautiful she looked in that dress and that she deserved wonderful things because she was a wonderful woman. And how could she not believe a woman like Mary? So sure of herself, so confident. She could have sold sand to a camel.

 

And for a couple of minutes she did believe in Mary. She believed that woman and her whole _You are a gorgeous little thing just the way you are Molly, and look how well that dress fits you_ thing.

 

She bought the dress. She had some money saved up on her bank account, and she spent it on it. Because Mary was telling her she looked perfect in it, and that it would take everybody's breath away at the Christmas party. (Apparently the party planning duties never left the college professor’s mind for longer than half an hour these days.)

 

As Molly waited for the cashier to give her back her debit card, she felt relieved all of a sudden. She had eaten and thrown up after days of being unable to do so- never mind the circumstances and the embarrassing, profussing apologising that had followed when she left the loo and the café staff members asked how she was feeling and did she need anything else and _It’s not necessary to pay for the brunch, it’s on the house_.

 

She had proven the voice in her head that she was, indeed, capable of going out with a friend that enjoyed her company and appreciated her as a person. Most importantly, she was satisfied and feeling optimistic because she had tried on a dress- a proper, beautiful cocktail dress, strapless and all- and felt good in it. It had looked good on her. She would almost, _almost_ say that she had felt perfect.

 

The experiment was not lost after all. It was working. It could still be carried out. She still had control, she still would succeed.

 

And she would show him.

 

There was a Christmas party coming at Baker Street and her presence was expected. Welcomed, even, at least by John and Mary. He'd be there, and she'd show up in that dress, and he'd just have to see with his own eyes that his kiss had not slowed her down. It hadn't destroyed her. She still had the control, the power. It was not his to have because she'd never truly given it up to begin with.

 

Molly would show him. Oh she would fucking show him.

 

And that simple action, a simple purchase, marked the beginning of the very worst part of her experiment.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to apologize for the delay in posting this chapter. 
> 
> I have not been well. Not unlike Molly in this story, I have some mental health issues, such as major depressive disorder and anxiety, and these past two months have been terrible for me. I have been on medication for two and a half years, but lately I've felt as if there is no amount of pills known to mankind that could help me feel better.
> 
> I hate my job and I am very unhappy in it, but I can't find anything else. My plans to move to Spain in September this year were the only thing holding me together, but now they shattered to pieces without me having a say in it. It was not my fault, it was someone else's, and there's nothing that can be done about it. I just feel so angry, so sad. So helpless, and hopeless. This one thing was everything I had, it was the reason I woke up in the morning. And now I don't have it, and it's as if I didn't have anything else to keep me here.
> 
> It's as if the universe was trying to show me with every failed attempt at happiness that I do not deserve to be happy. I hate my job, I am depressed, the only plan I had and the hope for a better future were destroyed, and so I've been having suicidal thoughts and considering writing myself off, so to speak. Because I don't feel I belong here, because I don't feel I am ever going to achieve anything or be happy or become a writer or work at a publishing house or move to another country. Or do any of the things I believe would make me happy. Because maybe the universe is trying to tell me I will never be happy.
> 
> I have a wonderful support system. I have my mom, my dad, and some dear friends. I have this new doctor I am going to be seeing once a week. My parents found him when they realized I was being serious about killing myself, and now I am going to be working with him and not with the other doctor (that I didn't like so much to begin with). I feel hopeless, and helpless, and I believe I am never going to achieve anything or be happy, but I can say I am not alone. I know that should be enough and that I should be happy that I have friends and family, but sadly my mind does not work like that, and so I am terribly unhappy and want to die. It is what it is.
> 
> I also have you, and this story. Thank you for every message you've sent my way asking when I was going to post a new chapter or telling me you were desperate for more updates. That helps me. That keeps me going, too. I have this story, and I have you my wonderful readers, and so it is a reason for me to try and keep going. So thank you so, so much. I don't have words to explain how important your comments and your support have been to me in this dark, difficult time where living inside my head is not so great. A head that once was so full of plans and hope for the future is now a very dark place, but this story shines on and reminds me that I can always write it instead of just write myself off.
> 
> Maybe this note doesn't make any sense. Maybe this is more information than you wanted to know about me. I apologize if that is the case. But since this is a story about mental health, I couldn't just not address my own situation. I could have told you that I didn't feel like writing, or that I was away on vacation, or swamped with work, but that it's not the truth. And I believe that in order to accept and solve my problems- or at least try to - I must start by admitting that they exist. They are what they are. I am what I am. I have a job that I hate, I can't find anything in the editorial or creative writing field, and I will be not moving to Spain in September. There, I said it. It's out there. My doctor thinks it's good that I can tell people about it, admit that these plans I've been going on and on for almost a year are dead. 
> 
> Sorry about this long note. But I needed you to now and understand how important you all are. How important this story is. Thank you so much again- I feel I can't say that enough.
> 
> I promise there will be more updates, more regularly, soon.
> 
> I love you all.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

A bloody Christmas party. He had seen the woman _once_ while he had an erection cradled between Molly Hooper's tights and now John Watson's bloody girlfriend was throwing a bloody Christmas party at his bloody flat. Brilliant!

 

_Fuck._

 

He was not one to entertain, and he had made that perfectly clear to John the first time he’d brought up the Christmas party. He didn’t do social gatherings, or spend holidays with family.  Even his parents were avoided like the plague on the rare occasion they dared suggest a visit around festive times. (In fact, Sherlock was not sure he would avoid the plague that _much._  He was a chemist, after all, and the plague could make for an interest study subject if he got a sample of the virus.)

 

The only people that he cared crossed Baker Street’s threshold were potential clients. And that rule didn’t necessarily apply to all of them. There were cases that were not worth interacting with people- he easily solved those through the blog. To allow someone into the flat meant the case was an eight at least. But, as it turned out (or as John had pointed out) he had a flatmate. And said flatmate paid his part of the rent, and apparently that entitled him to _things._ Letting his girlfriend host a Christmas Party with people in attendance was one of those things.

 

He could have left for the holidays, of course. His parents would have been more than happy to welcome him home for Christmas. They had been asking for several years that he joined them again to celebrate the supposedly true tales of a virgin woman in a stable giving birth to a baby marked as divine whilst some farm animals ate hay by the side. He could have let John and Mary have Baker Street to themselves to throw as many parties as they wanted, invite every person in bloody London for all he cared. But then what would have he complained about? What would have he had to blame his foul mood on?

 

For the last couple of days, John had attributed Sherlock’s acting up to the upcoming Christmas party, and the detective had let him believe so, never stating otherwise. Why would the doctor think any differently? He had to be used to Sherlock’s mood swings by then, and most of the time they were spectacularly ignored. The doctor ignored his friend when he played the violin at all hours until the callouses in his fingers ripped and bled. He ignored Sherlock when he blasted fucking Luigi Denza at fucking three in the morning, not a care that some people had to be up at seven for a twelve hour shift at the clinic because some people actually depended on paid work to get by, they couldn’t just stick their hands out and wait for Big Brother’s money to drop. Used as he was to the consulting detective’s idea that the world was supposed to cater to his every need and his reactions until something prove him wrong, John simply did what he knew was best under the circumstances: pretend Sherlock’s tantrums didn’t exist.

 

And it suited Sherlock just fine. Because he’d rather have John think he was being stubborn, and rude, and downright impossible to live with because he hated the idea of a Christmas party that he had to take part in being thrown at his flat. He’d rather have John talk behind his back, complaining to Mary that he was a sociopath and a selfish bastard that didn’t care his flatmate hadn’t slept for three nights because of his listening to Funiculi Funicula non-stop, day and night, whilst he paced the sitting room like a caged animal. (Because he felt like one, but John didn’t have to know that either.)

 

He’d rather have John think what everyone else did- that he was a sociopath that didn’t stand a chance at acting like a normal person around others, not even during the holidays- than have him knowing what actually went on in his mind those days.

 

Sherlock found himself in what others would have easily called an impossible situation. He didn’t know exactly what to call it, not for lack of intellect to properly label it, but because he was avoiding all examination of it as if it were the plague. He did not want to think about it, thus the extremely loud classical music playing at all hours and the torture he was putting his fingers through by picking up his violin to abuse it some more the moment the wounds in his hands healed a little. (They were always reopened. Always. They never healed fully, because he did not let them. Because terrible, terrible things would happen if he put the violin down long enough to allow himself back into his Mind Palace. Listening to music helped, but nothing compared to actually playing it and making himself bleed.)

 

His Mind Palace was the place where he could have worked things out until the puzzle was solved. The problem was he did not want to go in there. Because he knew that Molly Hooper was there, sitting in the throne like the motherfucking princess she thought she was, occupying the stellar place in his every memory and thought. She was in his dreams, too, for he always entered his Mind Palace to make the most of the few hours he spent resting. It wasn’t something that he did often, but every couple of days he napped in between threes and fours. Now he couldn’t, because she was there, waiting for him to misstep and fall right into the carefully laid trap he had let her set up in his very own fucking head. He couldn’t revise old cases, he couldn’t catalog new information (so working new high profile cases was not possible). He couldn’t escape reality, because he had been robbed of his sanctuary, his hiding place. Risking setting foot in there was not worth the consequences. He’d have to figure out how to evict her from there without actually going in there. Without seeing her, or listening to her, or giving up to his basic instincts and desires and fucking her into the floor until the Mind Palace Molly was moaning in his ear and he was a mess, drenched in sweat and with semen stains all over his underwear, like some desperate, hormone-fueled young boy.

 

Molly Hooper had caused Sherlock Holmes to lock himself outside his own Mind Palace. He couldn’t work. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t take his mind off drugs and the good they would do him, how easy it would be to just finally, finally rest from it all, away from it all. Away from her. Give himself to the pleasure that came with the needle piercing his skin and the heroine entering his veins, the silence, the quiet, the loneliness.

 

He was not alone in his Mind Palace anymore. It was infected, Molly Hooper and the version of her that was nested there claiming ownership of every fucking corner a poison that, unlike heroin or cocaine or morphine, never wore off. There was not coming down from her. The effect persisted, and persisted, and it tainted everything he'd ever called his own mind. It was bloody frustrating.

 

He said to himself he'd not touched the drugs because he wouldn't give Mind Palace Molly (or flesh-and-bones Molly for that matter) the satisfaction of becoming a trigger that culminated in him actually wrapping a rubber band around his biceps and shooting up. The truth was (and Sherlock, fucking bastard that he was, knew this) that he didn't want the drugs because the drugs were now second best to the pathologist.

 

He fucking craved Molly Hooper. The frail looking one that wore those horrid excuses for jumpers and had more bones and skin than flesh in her body those days. The one that with what look from her doe-like eyes made him come undone like no substance ever could. The one that made him _want_ and _need,_ and it was fucking worse than fucking withdrawal.

 

Sherlock had been to rehab a couple of times, always with Mycroft pulling the strings and orchestrating the big scheme of getting little brother out of the wolf's mouth, however tempting said mouth was and however comforting and safe it seemed for the youngest Holmes. The detective knew how rehab worked and, most importantly, what worked for him and what didn't. Talking and exposing feelings raw was a waste of time, but focusing on something that demanded his concentration and put his body into motion certainly helped when the cravings chased and threatened him.

 

Playing the violin beyond the abuse his fingers could stand. Listening to the same Neapolitan song from 1880 one thousand one hundred and ninety times a day for three days straight. That was the closest to calmness he got in spite of the brewing storm. When he couldn't solve interesting, relevant cases for fear they’d take him to St. Bart's, couldn't sleep because he was scared of _her_ showing up when he was most vulnerable, couldn't access his Mind Palace because _she_ had decided she was fucking princess now and he, a servant.

 

John knew nothing of this, of course. And so in the doctor’s eyes, Sherlock was a friend and flatmate rubbish enough to get irritable and behave like a prick (no surprise there) because he and his girlfriend were having people over for a Christmas Party.

 

“You can always accept your parents’ invitation and spend the holidays with them if what's going on here seems so barbaric to you,” John told him that morning over Pavarotti's voice.

 

Sherlock, who was looking out the window, didn't turn around to face him. He could see him reflected in the glass, putting up decorations he and Mary had gone shopping for.

 

He wondered why Mary wasn't there to help, so eager that she was this party was a success. He didn't ask John about it, didn't want him to have the wrong impression and assume he gave a damn whether his girlfriend had any issues facing Sherlock after they had found him and Molly in such a state almost a month ago. (Sherlock was sure that she didn't, but he did not give a damn about that either and it was not worth bringing it up.)

 

“People usually play carols when they decorate their homes for Christmas,” John went on with his monologue, referring to the Italian song that had been playing non-stop for the past seventy two hours, and not bothering to downplay his irritation.

 

“I am not decorating,” he stated, matter-of-factly. “You are decorating. I am trying to think and you are not letting me.”

 

(Liar. If anything he was trying _not_ to think. Not that John was letting him do that, either. Not that he would ever confess to John, or to anyone, what the real problem was.)

 

“I am deeply sorry, Sherlock. How do you ever put up with me?” the doctor’s tone was dripping in sarcasm when he said those words.

 

As the music still played ( _Was he not tired?_ John wondered. _Not even after three days?_ ) Sherlock left his place in front of the window in favor of his chair. He was tired, but he'd die before letting it show. Although at the pace things were going he wasn't certain death was off the table- he hadn't slept, or eaten in days and couldn't remain seated more than a quarter of an hour for fear of shutting down and involuntarily going into the Mind Palace, where she waited, all skin and bones and sulken doe-like eyes to remind him of how weak he was and how he had hurt her (was hurting her) with his weaknesses and imperfections. Offering what he knew he shouldn't want, tempting him with it.

 

He couldn't step into her trap (or was it _his_? It was _his_ Mind Palace after all, and he had been stupid enough, vulnerable enough to let her nest there at her heart's content. He had brought it upon himself.)

 

When Sherlock heard John say Molly's name, for a frightening fraction of a second the detective thought he had fallen asleep or shut off accidentally and that now was talking to Mind-Palace John. Another venue of torture for Mind-Palace Molly to try, perhaps. Show him how she could be present anywhere, everywhere, in any of the rooms, even those that weren't even hers to begin with but that she so easily could claim her own should she want to. Show him she could control the others that lived there, perhaps turn them against Sherlock, start a war inside his head.

 

(Oh but she had done that already, all right. There was a war going on inside his head at the moment, every single second of the day a battle against Molly Hooper and what she made him want, and feel, and crave. And the memory of her lips against his, the taste, the texture.

 

The desperation.

 

The _ache_.

 

The _pleasure_.)

 

But it was John talking, mentioning Molly's name with caution and in a way that made it clear to Sherlock that he had been going over the words a thousand times before gathering up the courage to bring up the subject.

 

“Sherlock, could you please acknowledge what I just said?” John asked a little bit impatiently when no reply came from his friend. He repeated himself anyway, like Sherlock knew he would: “I said Molly is invited to the Christmas party, and Mary told me she is coming. Can you please promise to behave yourself?”

 

Behave himself. God knew what John Watson meant with that. Did he think Sherlock would push Molly Hooper against a wall and feel her up over her clothes while the rest of them sang carols and exchanged presents?

 

( _Don't go there. Don't think about that. Don't think about_ her. _You begin entertain these hypothetical thoughts just to make fun of Watson, next thing you know you are throwing a fucking tea party for all the fantasies_ she _wants you to have with_ her. _Don't show weakness, don't think about it, don't be vulnerable. Don't be on the losing side. Stay focused, agree to whatever John's saying, and then blast the music even louder is possible so_ her name _doesn't linger in the air._ )

 

(He was bloody lucky his inner voice sounded so much like his brother's. He couldn't have imagined anything more off-putting than having Mycroft telling you to avoid improper thoughts with his thick accent. Perhaps he should let the version of his brother that he housed in his Mind Palace come out more often.)

 

“I have no interest in this party and its guests whatsoever,” he reminded John in an emotionless voice. “The only reason I am staying here is because it's the lesser of two evils when compared to spending time with my parents.” He got up his chair, enjoyed the hopeful look in John's eyes that perhaps he was finally going to turn the music off, and went to sit on the couch instead. He couldn't just stay in one place for more than a couple of minutes without feeling his inner alarms go off. He was on the verge of falling asleep, he knew, and tempted to shoot a hole in the wall in order to create chaos that would keep him awake. It wasn't such a bad idea. Actually, it was nothing if not his best option.

 

“You are not addressing what I said, Sherlock. I am asking you to please behave yourself with Molly when she's here for the party on Christmas Eve. We talked about it, that girl's not well and the last thing she needs is…”

 

Sherlock interrupted him.

 

He did not want to know what it was that John Watson thought Molly Hooper needed or didn't need.

 

He did, however, know what it was that _he_ needed and, most importantly, what he didn't.  

 

“I will not interact with any of you and your girlfriend's guests in any form whatsoever because I will lock myself in the bedroom and pretend your Christmas party is not happening,” Sherlock said in one long breath. “Are you satisfied? Will you leave me be now?”

 

For a moment neither of the two men said anything as the music kept playing.

 

“You won't be in attendance?”

 

“Are you deaf, John? Is your hearing system somehow impaired? Or is the music too loud for you to make out words? I thought the volume was just fine. You were just speaking rather animatedly a moment before, and we both know just how much you enjoy hearing your own voice when you speak.”

 

He was being what they referred to as a “git" on purpose, because he was tired and frustrated, and on the verge of exploding or intoxicating himself for the first time in a long time just to avoid inhabiting the skin, flesh, and bones that he was doomed to call his. He wanted the conversation to be over without _her_ being mentioned again. He'd do whatever it took to make that happen.

 

No such luck.

 

“Mary and I would like for you to join the party. It's not that we are inviting Molly to keep you away or so that you are…”

 

“She's not here because she is with her, isn't she? You are bringing up the pathologist,” _don't say her name, don't call her yours_ “because your girlfriend just texted you and told you something about her. Because they are together, enjoying their days off, that just happened to fall on the same date. She mentioned her in her text, probably to update you on her state or advise you to tell me not to mess with her when I see her at your party.”

 

If John was perplexed by Sherlock's deductions, he didn't let it show. He had looked far more perplexed when he'd told him he would be staying in his bedroom pretending they weren't all out there following their stupid traditions.

 

“She is not with her right now. They saw each other yesterday. They went dress shopping. Mary thinks it's healthy for Molly's self-image to…”

 

“I don't care.”

 

He had gotten up from the couch as John was speaking and, seeing as he couldn't turn it any louder, turned the music off instead. He was not to stay there and listen to John speaking about Molly's state, and her health, and her self-image. He was not to be tortured with comments on what she was doing to her because of something he had said and that she had misunderstood completely.

 

( _Or hadn't she?_ )

 

Without adding another word, Sherlock left and locked himself inside his room, just like he had said he'd do during the party.

 

And, without adding another word, John Watson simply stood in the middle of a now silent sitting room, and just watched him leave, his mouth slightly open in surprise. At what, he wasn't all that sure.

 

He was not going to stay there and listen to details of what she was doing to herself because of him. He wouldn't let those details control him, and manipulate him, and put a shovel in his hands so he could keep digging his own grave inside his very own mind.

 

Sherlock Holmes wouldn't listen to John Watson talk about Molly Hooper because he didn't want to care. He wouldn't care. He wouldn't be weak. He wasn't an idiot to stay there and let his friend tempt him with what he wanted the most to ignore. He had decided he would hide like a rat during the bloody Christmas party John's bloody girlfriend was hosting in their bloody shared apartment because he wanted to avoid _her_.

 

Because he couldn't afford the luxury of seeing her.

 

He couldn't afford the luxury of exposure.

 

And yet it was excruciating knowing she'd be there, a few feet away, only a door between them. Breathing the same air, existing in the same space. It was already excruciating to know that she existed in the same world as he (and Sherlock didn't want to dwell on that because he wasn't sure he was enough of a sociopath to justify what a monstrosity _that thought_ meant by saying that he was one.)

 

Accepting his parents’ offer to spend the holidays with them had never been more tempting to Sherlock. He knew Mycroft was leaving London the following day. It would take just a text, a simple one saying he was coming, and big brother would manage every detail to ensure Sherlock was out of the city, far away from Molly Hooper's imminent presence at Baker Street. Safe for the time being, protected at mummy’s and making her believe he was a good son that cared about her wish to get the family together for Christmas, to boost.

 

And yet he knew that he would stay, that he wouldn't text Mycroft saying he'd join him, and, very deep down, he also knew that he'd give in to the voices inside his head (the same voices he was going crazy trying to shut down) and attend the party anyway. For someone who was trying to avoid be experimented on by someone who was determined to play games with his mind until he parted with his sanity, he was failing spectacularly at not offering himself up on a silver plate for vivisection. Whatever had that girl done with his self-preservation, with his strength, he had no idea.

 

Yes, he'd probably attend that Christmas Party instead of hiding behind closed doors like he was doing now or boarding a private jet headed to mummy's.

 

And nothing guaranteed that he'd behave himself.

 

* * *

 

“Whatever are you trying to do by encouraging that girl's presence at your stupid Christmas celebration?”

 

If Mary hadn't been used to Sigmund dropping by unannounced and using the key he had to her apartment, she would have been startled by his presence when she returned home from Tesco that day. Because that was a thing she did now, shop at Tesco. That was something her character would do. And she was all for becoming one with the characters she played.

 

“Cheeky of you to wait for me here when I could have shown up with John,” she commented as she left the grocery bags on the kitchen counter before taking off her shoes and coat and tucking the gloves away in the pockets like their mum had taught them. “Oh, no, wait,” she anticipated Sigmund’s reply and made an accurate impression of him before the man had time to open his mouth: “ _I know where John Watson is at all times. I knew he wouldn't be with you. He is at home putting up Christmas decorations, to Sherlock's enormous annoyance_.”

 

“You did a much better impression of my thick accent when we were kids, Rosamund. Whatever happened to your acting skills?” Sigmund got up to help her put the groceries away. He'd never admitted it, but the manners their mother had taught them had stuck with him.

 

“I am sorry, big brother. I am out of practice. After all,” she continued bitterly “our beloved uncle separated me from our family when I was not even six.”

 

If the comment had any effect on him, he did not let it show.

 

“I am here to plead with you one more time that you leave Molly Hooper out of this and that you please stop befriending her. Need I remind you that Mary Morstan isn't real and therefore she shouldn't be shopping for dresses up and down Oxford street arm in arm with a her gals?”

 

They had already had this conversation the day before. She was not going to have it one more time.  

 

“Need I remind you having friends and engaging in such activities makes my character more believable to John Watson?”

 

“Couldn't you just pretend to be friends with the other professors and people you see at work?” Sigmund asked as he put the last of the groceries away and she filled the kettle with water for tea.

 

“Don't you think John Watson fell in love even deeper with Mary after she shared with him what she saw in Molly and began helping her?”

 

It hurt to say the words, but she was such a good professional (much better than her older brother, and his ego be damned) that he never noticed. The anguish, the sorrow, none of those things shone in her eyes or transformed her facial expressions, that remained unchanged under the man's everlasting excrutinity. Mary was always careful with her emotions, and what she'd come to feel for John Watson she guarded better than anything.

 

“We don't need him to be madly in love with you for the plan to work. We just need him to keep seeing you, we just need him to keep trusting you…”

 

“Well, he needs to love her if he's going to trust her,” she interrupted him. For some reason it was easier to talk about this if she used the third person. This was a job, after all, and John Watson was a mission (her mission). And Mary Morstan was one more character that would fall into oblivion once she wasn't needed anymore. Once the real _her_ (the one without an official identity, the one that had been Rosamund many lives ago) was needed somewhere else, pretending to be someone else.

 

“I thought it was the other way around. I thought there had to be trust first for love to be possible. If trust needs to come first, then we can stop at trust. We only need him to trust you, Rosie. And he does. You don’t need to go saving people he knows from themselves. We’ve already discussed this a million times,” he said.

 

“If we’ve gone through this so many times, then I don’t understand how someone as smart as you hasn’t understood yet that I will not stop tailing Molly Hooper because I believe she is important to what we are doing. And I won’t discuss this anymore,” Mary stated as she carried the tray with two cuppas, the milk jug and the kettle to the sitting area. “So if you are here to lecture me about my friendship with Molly Hooper, I’ll have to ask you to drink up your tea as fast as you can without burning your tongue and then go home. I’ve been running errands all day, my feet are killing me.”

 

“You still take your shoes off the moment you arrive home,” Sigmund noticed, pointing with his head to the pair of shoes she’d kicked off and that now were abandoned in a corner near the coat racket.

 

“I like to walk around barefoot,” she said, shrugging off her shoulders and taking a sip out of her cuppa. “You didn’t come all the way here to make that observation now, did you?”

 

“She still does the same, you know.”

 

The air in the room changed after he said that. It got so thick it could have been easily cut with a butter knife. She hated it when he did that, when he made comments about the mother that he got to grow up having, whereas she didn’t because someone else made that choice in favour of a supposedly greater good.

 

Those were thoughts she did not like entertaining, and she tried to stay as far away from them as possible. Even though that, they were strong enough that she never could push them all the way to the back of her mind, so they were never far from her or she from them.

 

Her brother did not take her silence for what it was: a warning. And so he kept talking.

 

“I saw her the other day. She was heartbroken he will not be joining us for the festivities this year, either. She should be used to that, though. He never does, never has since the year he left home for college.”

 

She gritted her teeth but said nothing, hoping that whatever it was that was making Sigmund so eager to talk about _her_ would be soon overpowered by his realizing his words were hurting her, haunting her. Or maybe this was torture. Maybe this was what she got for going against him and the orders bestowed upon them and deciding that she had to keep Molly Hooper’s at arm’s length and help her. Perhaps this was the price Sigmund was putting to her disobedience, and the sole reason he had gone there that day was to mention the mother that he’d gotten to keep. The mother that had had to bury her baby girl, or at least a body that resembled her baby girl’s, whilst her own brother hid her away from the family.

 

“I told her I didn’t want to make any promises, but that I would try to make him accept their invitation. Although if a Christmas party at his own apartment doesn’t make him want to be home for the holidays, then I don’t know if something ever could.”

 

“Well,” she finally said, pouring them both more tea just to keep herself occupied with something “at least I get to spend a holiday with Sherlock. Even if John just texted me that he’s in a foul mood and saying he won’t leave his bedroom for the duration of the party.”

 

“Your hands are shaking, Rosamund. You are going to spill boiling water all over your lap” he observed, taking the kettle from her and pouring the tea himself.

 

“I’m just tired, and you coming here to talk about her, when you know that I don’t like it, isn’t exactly making it better,” she said, finally giving in and admitting to one the one weakness she had that she was not very good at hiding from him when he brought it up.

 

Their mother.

 

“You know that I can’t…”

 

“Tell them,” she finished his sentence. “I know.” And then, wishing that he would just leave, she asked again “Why are you here?" The words were said softly, but she truly was on her last nerve.

 

“Because it’s almost Christmas time and I wanted to see you before I left London for the holidays. You are my family, too.”

 

“Well, I appreciate it,” she said.

 

“I can see you are exhausted and need some sleep. You’re going to be very busy with the party, and you know how I hate to impose.” He stood up, and so did she. “Don’t worry, I can see myself out. I have a car waiting for me.”

 

“Of course you do,” she tried to smile, and saw him to the hallway anyway, like she often did when he visited, whether it was for business or family affairs, although with them it could never be known where one ended and the other began.

 

“I ask you that you be careful with everyone. The mission, Molly Hooper, Sherlock… Everything,” he said as they waited for the lift.

 

“That is something that doesn’t need reminding. Merry Christmas, brother.”

 

Those three words were said as the lift arrived to her floor with a ‘ding’ sound. When the doors opened, Sigmund Mycroft Arthur Holmes looked at his sister and did something that was rare for him: he smiled genuinely, leaned down and kissed her cheek in a way that could have been described as affectionate, even.

 

“Merry Christmas to you, too, Rosamund Eurus.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I would like to thank each and any of you for the tremendous support you have shown me. I don't have any words to thank you for every kind comment you've sent, and all the wonderful things you've written and sent my way. It's helped a great deal, and I appreciate every single message I've gotten. There are a few that I haven't been able to reply yet, but I will do so right after posting this chapter because I want you all to know how important it is for me that you all showed me that you care, and that I am not alone.
> 
> Things did get a little better. The new medication seems to be working, and the new team I've been working with (my therapist and my doctor) are really helping me. So are my friends and family. So are you, with your beautiful comments and the support you've shown me. 
> 
> Another good thing that happened is that I found a new job that I like very much. I started two weeks ago and I am very comfortable in it. The people I work with are really nice, I like what I do, and every minute I spend there is not spent in a state of sadness and anger. I am getting along really well with my coworkers. The place is great. It gives me hope. And it is making me want to believe that it is okay to plan for the future, and that what I wanted to do this year, well, maybe I will achieve it next year, and for now I can work on growing as an editor by working in this new place with these new amazing people.
> 
> I also want to say I am sorry for how long it took me to sit down and write this chapter. The writing of this chapter took so long because at first the new medication made me very tired and I couldn't focus, I slept a lot or didn't sleep at all, and I was still very sad and very stressed because of my old job. Then they called me to interview for this new job, and I spent almost a month going to different interviews and getting through a lot of tests before they hired me, which was also very tiring and (I am not going to lie) very frustrating at times. Then I was told I was hired and I began working there two weeks ago, and the first week I was so nervous, and anxious, and stressed due to all the changes, I barely had time to write. This past week I managed to write a lot, and so here is the new chapter. I promise I will try to post updates as often as I used to. It's something I miss doing, it's something I want to do. Writing is one of the things I love the most, if not the thing I love the most, and this story is the one project that has kept me afloat. Immediately after posting this chapter, I will begin writing the following one, and hopefully it will be ready for next week.
> 
> So, that brings us to another thing: the story. Now one of the cats is out of the bag. I cannot wait to hear what you think about it, and I am so nervous. Will you love the plot twist? Will you hate the plot twist? Will you want to get to the other plot twists that I have planned? Will you think I've gone crazy? Mary being Eurus was one of the first things that came to my mind when I decided to plan and plot this story, and now that it's out there... Well, I am just so anxious to hear what you guys think, and any theories or thoughts or questions you may have. 
> 
> I am sorry if this note did not make a lot of sense, or if it is too long. The main thing is: I can't thank you enough for all the love and support you've sent my way. I can't thank you enough for reading this story and following it. Next chapter is the Christmas party. I hope you are as excited as I am. I hope the whole "Mary being Eurus" thing excites you as much as it does me.
> 
> Once again: thank you, and I love you. And sorry for the delay. And sorry for the messy note you've just read (and thank you for reading it.)
> 
> Happy Easter! (If you celebrate) Happy Sunday!


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

_You shouldn't have bought him a present, you worthless imbecile_.

 

She had done it on impulse. Her bank account was not overflowing with sterling pounds, but she had enough saved that she could afford a treat every now and then. She was never interested in designer clothes, handbags or jewelry. So, on the rare occasions that she spent the extra money, she did it on books and CDs. She didn’t like spending it, though. When she did, it came with guilt greater than whatever pleasure she was indulging in. She’d rather the money sat on the bank account in case she had an emergency and needed to use it- perhaps something to fix around the flat. That was the kind of emergencies someone like her had.

 

(That, or passing out in the bathroom or the living room for a couple of minutes every three days lately. But she was not going to think about that.)

 

Or perhaps buying a Christmas present for the world’s only consulting detective.

 

Molly did not know why she bought it. She had cried herself to sleep for the better part of the night (and only stopped when she passed out from sheer exhaustion,) playing a game of _he-wants-me-he-wants-me-not_ . Or pain-pong, as she liked to call it. She imagined the words in her head like a ping-pong ball ten times its normal size, hitting the walls of her brain with such force it left her hurting for hours. (It wasn't the lack of food, no. Of course it wasn't, never that. All but that.) And every time it hit a corner of her mind she heard those words echoe _._

 

_He wants you. He wants you not._

 

Of course it was down to a matter of _want_. She'd never dare _think_ the _other_ word, not even hypothetically. She was not worthy of it- never had and never would. But perhaps she could be _wanted_ by him. That night, both at the hospital and then at Baker Street, she had felt in her bones, flesh and veins, every single nerve-ending of his pulsing with desire that he breathed into her mouth, her lungs, her whole wrecked, abused system. He had to have wanted something from her, even if it only was the control that she would not give up. Even if it was something she’d never surrendered to him. But it occured to Molly that perhaps that was the key. He wanted something from her ( _her control, her sanity_ ) and that was better than nothing. That _had_ to be better than nothing.

 

Or maybe he didn’t want anything. Maybe he didn’t care enough about her (and why would he care, right?) and it was all in her mind, and he was just cruel and liked to torture her a little. But then he did want something from her, right? If he just wanted to play and torture her and be cruel, he still wanted something. It still had to be better than nothing, right?

 

And so the game was never ending.

 

Pain, _he wants you not_.

 

Pain, _he wants you_. It could be that he is just being a soulless bastard that thrives on suffering. It could be that he enjoys toying with fragile people’s even more fragile feelings. But it still was something. And it had to be better than nothing.

 

Or not.

 

_Pain._

 

It was never ending, indeed.

 

She was sleep deprived when she bought the present. (She was food deprived, too- one carrot and half a bowl of cauliflower soup could have been fooling Molly’s mind, but her body was a different story. She was in control, though- why wouldn’t she be?) But she had been feeling fine. Festive, even. She had dressed herself in layer after layer of wool. She’d put on makeup to hide the now permanent dark circles under her eyes. And then she had drank two cans of diet Coke and a bottle of water to have a full stomach. Then she had ventured out, to the real world. The one that existed outside her flat. The one where she felt unwanted, useless and pathetic, unless she was in the morgue surrounded by those who could no longer feel.

 

(Those she was more and more alike every day.)

 

The rain was light. A drizzle. She’d had trouble saying that word as a child- but then again, she’d had a lot of speech problems growing up. She still did. Some things never really left you, even after becoming the youngest senior pathologist at the hospital of your dreams. (Who dreamed of hospitals, though? No wonder she’d always been referred to as ‘the odd one’ by her classmates and teachers.)

 

Molly had a shift later that night. After the party. Mary’s party. Mary and John’s party. Mary and John’s party at Baker Street. Where Sherlock lived, too. Where he had kissed and touched her in a way no one _ever_ had before. Where her heart had broken and her precious control had almost been snatched from her violently, as violently as he had kissed and touched her. She always worked Christmas. She always worked all holidays. She didn’t have family, so she wouldn’t care if everyone else had some time off to spend with their loved ones, would she? Why would she care? Of course she didn't care. Of course she’d cover for them all. That was good, reliable, sweet, shy and lonely Molly, always willing to do for others what no one would do for her. (And what would they? What was she worth to them? To anyone? Nothing).

 

She kept trying to revise the day’s events in her mind, give them an order. Understand them. Analyze them. Show herself that they had had a purpose, that control was still hers, that the stupidity she had done by buying him a present was part of the scheme, that it could be used against him, could be used to her advantage to show him _she_ \- _still_ \- _had_ \- _fucking_ \- _control_. But thoughts got mixed and confused, and her mind kept wandering off as she sat in her small living room, waiting for the cab she had called to arrive and take her to Baker Street for the party, the bag full of presents hanging on the doorknob so she wouldn’t forget it. (Her mother had taught her that trick when she was a child.)

 

The night was cold and she was freezing, but she hadn’t dared ruining the look she and Mary had so carefully thought over by throwing on a sweater over the dress. An old black coat would have to do. (No, it wouldn’t do. Nothing helped push the cold away these days. She was always so, so very cold. Almost as cold as the people she worked with. The ones that did not breathe. The ones whose blood was quiet and still inside their veins. The ones she resembled more and more with each passing day as she walked the path to what she considered was absolute perfection.)

 

The cabbie didn’t ask for directions. He knew the way. She was relieved that he did, that he had remained silent after they’d said  _Good evening_ to each other. Molly hated small talk. It made her anxious and nervous because her speech difficulties got out of control when she had to speak to people she didn’t know very well about things other than her field of expertise, the only topic she felt comfortable talking about under any circumstance. That was what she was good at, what she knew of, why she made all those morbid jokes and had such a dark, twisted sense of humor.

 

With her head resting on the tarnished glass (the constant, pounding pain in her temples was beginning to feel almost pleasurable) she tried to focus on one thought at the time, tried to find the logic of what she’d done and why, and whether she would carry it all out to the last consequences and give him the present when she arrived at Baker Street in less than fifteen minutes. The truth was that she did want to give him the present, but she needed a reason why other than the love she felt that burned her from the inside. She needed it to fit into her perfect, oh so well controlled plan.

 

Why had she left the apartment that day on the first place? Oh, the blog, yes. The blog. She’d been deeply upset by the amount of posts she’d seen on blogs she followed. They were all talking about their families. Some complained, some were moved by the amount of support they had been shown by them when they’d not been expecting any, some said they were sustained by their love while others spat words of hatred and discontent. But they all had something in common, something that Molly did not share with any of them: they had at least _someone_ to call family.

 

Molly had nothing. Molly was nothing.

 

She’d felt trapped in her apartment, left out in the universe she’d come to think of as her second home. She’d felt cornered inside her very own mind. She would have called Dr. Stamford to ask if he needed her to cover someone’s shift, but she didn’t want to miss the party because she’d promised Mary she’d go, they’d bought a dress together specially for the occasion.

 

Right now Mary was the closest thing she had to a friend, someone that seemed to show genuine interest for her. Someone to count on. She thought of calling her, asking if she wanted to meet up for coffee and perhaps some last minute Christmas shopping, but she decided against it. She was surely busy tending to the last details before the party, or spending some much needed time with Dr. John Watson. Molly didn’t want to interrupt that. The fact that she was alone and had no one didn’t mean that others were in the same situation. (In fact, others were not, and that was what set her apart. That was what made her sure that she was the one with the problem, the one unworthy and useless and with nothing to offer to anyone. No good reason to have her around, or want her, or love her.)

 

So she’d decided to go out by herself, breathe some fresh air and perhaps get a present for Mary. She’d been eyeing a silk scarf they had on the displayer of the shop where they’d gotten her dress for the party. She’d get a bottle of wine for John, too, while she was at it. Did he like one? She knew Mary did, so the bottle would not go undrunk if it wasn’t to the doctor’s tastes. She’d also get something for John and Sherlock’s landlady, she’d thought. It was only polite, right? The woman was, after all, welcoming them all into her house. She didn’t know her, didn’t know what she could possibly like, but Molly’s mother had always said that you could never be wrong with a box of toffee.

 

Yes, she’d spend the day running those errands, she’d thought, mixing with the people that had beloved ones to Christmas shop for. People with family, and significant others, and friends. All of what she lacked. All of what she was desperately in need of. She’d pretend she was like them, and who could know that she wasn’t? They wouldn’t be able to see she was different, and alone, and sad. She’d be like them for a day, she’d thought, someone carefully choosing what she’d put under the Christmas tree for those she loved and loved her in return.

 

It would be brilliant, she’d thought.

 

And in spite of the cold weather and the drizzle and her pounding headache (that almost, _almost_ felt pleasurable) she ventured out and spent good part of that December day with a hundred people in Oxford Street.

 

Her phone, the one she’d gotten after the mugging in early May, had a perfect sound system and fantastic earbuds, so when she found herself in crowded places she could listen to some music. It helped her relax. She remembered when her father had bought her a second-hand walkman from a co-worker’s cousin so she could listen to music when she walked to and from school- it’d helped her get her mind off the constant bullying she suffered and eased her anxiety. The device had been one of her most treasured possessions back then, and she still kept it in a box with a lot of other things that reminded her of her parents.

 

Florence Welch had been singing to her about wishing for falling and falling in love when she’d spotted _it_ on one of the big shop’s display: an elegant, beautiful, golden man’s wrist watch.

 

The sight of the golden watch on the window display had taken Molly's breath away. It was the kind of present Mrs. Hooper would have loved to buy for Molly's father had they had the money. She'd been reminded of a story by O’Higgins about a couple set around Christmas time or some other festivity. They were very poor, but they were very much in love. And each had sold their most beloved possession in order to get the other a special Christmas present. Molly didn't remember the ending, but she remembered that it was a sad one and that the couple in the story made her think of her mom and dad when she was little. Very poor, very in love, and unable to put anything for the other under the Christmas tree because there wouldn't have been food on the table if they had spent the money on handbags or ties.

 

It was the kind of present she would buy for Sherlock if he wanted her ( _he wants me he wants me not he wants me he wants me not hewantsmehewanstmenot_ ). If she weren’t so stupid and useless and worthless and imperfect. If she were sure that he’d seen her as something more than someone to experiment his cruelness on.

 

She’d bought it, of course.

 

Dr. Molly Hooper walked into that shop and bought a fucking watch that was worth more than anything she’d ever bought for herself. She bought Sherlock Holmes a fucking £250 fucking watch for fucking Christmas. Why exactly, she still wasn’t sure (and the cab was just around the corner from Baker Street, she’d be there any minute now).

 

Very, _very_ deep down, part of her knew what she was setting herself up for. And yet that did not stop her. It was as if she had a genetic predisposition to throwing herself at his feet, willingly letting him walk all over her. Show her where she belonged: the same place dirt did.

 

She’d spent the rest of the day wrapping and unwrapping and wrapping again his present, over and over until she’d been sure that it was perfect. (Until she’d been sure that it was everything she wasn’t. But she was getting closer, she’d be there soon. It was a matter of time.)

 

(Yes, it was a matter of time.)

 

Deep down she knew, she’d known from the moment she’d spotted the watch on display. She was a fucking masochist and was doing this because she needed a fix, because she was addicted to him… doing what? Belittling her? Humiliating her? No. It wasn’t that she was after. That was the collateral damage. What she wanted was the attention. His attention. Being belittled and humiliated and made fun of was better than being unnoticed and ignored, she was realizing. And the only way to get Sherlock Holmes to pay attention to her was if she did things like this.

 

It was wrong, of course. But she couldn’t see that. She wanted to be seen by him, wanted it so much, that she could not see everything else, past her obsession and the illness that was literally consuming her and her desperate need to be loved.

 

In Molly Hooper’s mind, what she was doing was part of her plan. Of course it was. Yes, she was not letting herself down, she was not wrong, she was not sick, nor was she giving up control and exposing herself to his wickedness and cruelty. She was not doing this to get his attention. No, no, no. She could see it clearly now, she thought as she paid the cabbie, she could see how it all fit in her brilliant experiment.

 

She was only doing this to show him, to fucking show him, that control was hers even after what had happened between them almost a month ago, and that she could show up to this party wearing her new dress and using more makeup than she’d ever worn before in her life, and hand everyone a present, including him, because she fucking wished to do so. And that she had only gotten him an expensive watch because it helped her prove her point. (What her point was exactly, she was not so sure anymore, but she’d never admit that. In her mind, she was sure.)

 

There was even a handwritten note to go with the present. She’d written them all the same boring, predictable lines wishing them all a Merry Christmas and adding kisses and her love. (Her love! As if anyone wanted that! Who could want her love? But, if only for just that one night, she’d pretend that they all did. Perhaps even him.) That would show him, it would fucking show him, that he was not any different from the rest. They were all getting a present from her, they all had those boring, stupid notes that said the same, which made them meaningless, right? It had to be meaningless. She wanted him to feel that: he wasn’t special, he meant nothing to her.

 

She still had control.

 

Yes, she had fucking control, that’s right.  

 

Dr. Molly Hooper was convinced of what she was doing and why when she stepped out of the cab and knocked the door of 221B Baker Street. Her plan was brilliant, she could see now, and perfect. As perfect as she was close to becoming thanks to her experiment.

 

Only that it wasn’t.

 

Yes, perhaps she shouldn’t have bought him a present.  

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the party begins.
> 
> I decided to stop this chapter here because I missed posting. I missed writing. I got a freelance writing job (my first writing job!) a week ago and I am loving every minute of it, but between that and my work as an editor I am practically working 6 am - 11 pm Monday through Monday. I didn't want to leave you guys hanging. So this is a little chapter to get the party started.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it, and I hope I can have the next chapter ready soon. Spoiler alert: there's a lot of Mary in it, and I know how a lot of you wanted to know more about her now that the cat is out of the bag.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm. This chapter also mentions kidnapping.

_You shouldn’t have been so careless with the contact lenses._

The woman pretending to be Mary Morstan was used to changing her appearance, shedding the current, fake skin when it was no longer needed and making up a new one from scratch. Contact lenses were often part of the disguise. The eyes told a lot about a person. She used them to her advantage, letting every character’s eyes show her audience exactly what she wanted them to see.

 

No more.

 

No less.

 

Her bastard of an uncle had taught her that. Half an hour after being taken from Musgrave Hall she'd worn her first pair of contact lenses.

 

“ _Looks can be deceiving, little girl. Have mummy and daddy explained you so? We have to make you look somewhat different now that we're going to the special place I told you about. And the eyes of a person give away a lot about them, Eurus.”_

 

He then proceeded to hand the girl her first pair of contact lenses. They were brown, and even though she didn't need more than ten seconds to work out how to put them on (she was a child prodigy, after all) they stung all day that day, and then the next one too. But she didn't dare take them out or complain, because Uncle Rudy had explained to her how important it was that no one recognized them. Her mummy and daddy would be in trouble if she didn’t remember she wasn't called Rosie anymore. And she didn't want mummy and daddy to get in any trouble, so she did everything she was told without making a peep, as was expected.

 

She was five.

 

She spent seven years in America when she first joined them (or was it more accurate to say when they first acquired her?) She was fluent in several languages, spoke them all so flawlessly she could pass for a native speaker. (She always passed for a native speaker when they assigned her missions abroad. She also knew how to make it seem she didn't speak good English.) But her American accent was the best. One of the drugs they had tried on her when she arrived at the training center had made her brain absorb languages like a sponge. She could have sworn every time she used her American accent she could hear the agent that had taken care of her and the others those first months.

 

Most children asked constantly for their parents. She hadn't. Uncle Rudy had already explained everything to her. Those other kids, apparently Uncle Rudy's co-workers hadn't told then what the rules were. At the time she had thought she was lucky because her uncle was protecting her but he hadn't made any excuses like grown ups do when they want you to be obedient. He would treat her as an equal, as the brilliant little girl he was, he had said, and told her the truth.

 

He had been lying, of course.

 

Uncle Rudy, the bastard, had told his niece that families with more than two children were being made give one up because England was overpopulated and there soon would be any food or water left. Her parents, he'd said, had to choose between her, Mycroft and Sherlock and send one to live abroad with an adoptive family. The fucking bastard had told her Sigmund had volunteered, but that no one wanted him because he was too old, and families preferred babies. Like her baby brother, William. But mummy and daddy would be too sad if they had to send William to live with another family. They had refused that option.

 

_“Do I have to go live with another family?”_

 

_“No. There's a special place for gifted children like you. Do you remember how sad you were when Michael went back to school but you were told you had to wait until you could go, too? This place is like a school where you will learn how to put your talent to good use.”_

 

He had sold her that dystopian novel,  X-Man rubbish and she had bought it. Because it didn't matter that she was bright and had an IQ as close to Einstein's as one could get. She had been still a child. A fucking five year old whose beloved Uncle told her her parents were about to get in trouble because they couldn't decide what to do with the third kid they weren't supposed to keep. Mycroft couldn't go, they wouldn't let Sherlock go… It had to be her, and he was offering to pull strings to enroll her in a special school for gifted children. And how many times had she been told she was gifted, brilliant, a prodigy? It made sense that she got sent to a place like the one her uncle was describing. If she was forced to leave her family (or, if her family was expected to have her leave) then that was the lesser of two evils.

 

It wasn't long until she realized what kind of rubbish she'd been fed. But by the time she realized what was being done to her, Rosamund Eurus Holmes had been as good as dead, buried under all the experiments they'd performed on her.

 

She adapted. She became one of them. She morphed into what they wanted her to, everything they wanted her to. At the beginning it was a matter of survival of the fittest. She wouldn't make it if she resisted. At the end she understood that it would be her way out. Only by letting them shape her into what they themselves were would she walk out of there.

 

From the moment they began to assign her missions she knew very clearly what her goal was: be offered a position with MI6 so she could return to the United Kingdom. She waited patiently, did as they told her, passed every test with flying colors. She made them believe they had succeeded, that they had brainwashed her. That she was one of them. _Theirs_. A brilliant girl that had blossomed into a brilliant woman under their care and stimulus, a result of their many experiments on human development.

 

She worked for the devil in the hopes that in the future she'd trick the devil into working for her.

 

One day it payed off.

 

Her name was Cecilia back then. She wore some contact lenses the color of leaves when the fall is just beginning.

 

It wasn't revenge she was after. It wasn't about the past, either. She didn't think of the past (not so much anyway). She'd had to let go in order to survive. Rosamund Holmes was nothing but a name on a grave, and she'd made her peace with that.

 

It was impossible for her to know what kind of person she would have been if Uncle Rudy hadn’t kidnapped her. She couldn't imagine what type of life her parents would have given her, how growing up with her brothers would have been like. She didn't want to guess or wonder, simply because it was something that would not happen, all possibilities dead the minute they had smuggled her out of England.

 

It was freedom she was after.

 

She wanted to go back to the starting point, where decisions had been made for her, and now make her own decision. She had a plan. She'd fake the death of this virtually nameless person she'd become, just like they had once faked the death of the Holmes girl. And then she’d start over, find herself and who she still could be in spite of everything that had been done to her. Find a voice, and a career, and thoughts, and ideas that were hers and hers only. Never wear contact lenses again, let everyone see her piercing blue eyes. No more hiding. No more fearing. No more working for others’  benefits and profit.

 

There was one thing she left out, though. One thing she didn’t consider could interfere with her plan.

 

Emotional context.

 

She went back to the United Kingdom without any intentions of revisiting her past. But she forgot she had no control whatsoever over her past finding her.

 

It was no accident that she had been assigned a mission with MI6, no. It was too late when she finally understood that. God doesn’t play dice with the universe, they say. They had chosen her. _Again_. Just like she had been chosen once as a child when Uncle Rudy decided to make such particular offering to Queen and Country. She hadn’t had a say in this, either.

 

She recognized Sigmund the moment she saw him. The same blue eyes. Hers. William's.

 

Uncle Rudy was bloody right about a person's eyes.

 

Everyone called him Mycroft now. She refused. She made him call her Rosamund. It was their secret. And no one knew, because they never let them see the two together if she wasn’t wearing contact lenses.

 

It was all down to what the eyes can tell you about a person.

 

Sherlock (not William, he was Sherlock now) was in rehab for the first time when Sigmund and Rosie reunited, many years after Mr and Mrs Holmes had to bury their only daughter. She saw in Siggy’s eyes how it affected him, how worried he was for their brother (their brother!) and how keeping it all bottled up was eating at him.

 

She stayed because Sigmund asked her to.

 

She said yes.

 

_Emotional context._

 

When she was a child she was sold, and she didn’t have a choice. As a woman, she chose to sell herself to save her brothers. Both of them. And so she lost her chance at freedom. She stayed with them, kept working for them, kept being what they had prepared her to be.

 

A soldier.

 

The night she and John walked in on Molly and Sherlock sucking the air out of the other’s lungs, that was the first time she saw her brother as an adult. It wasn’t more than five seconds, and she was glad that she had the young, disturbed pathologist to run after. Otherwise, she didn’t know she’d have done.

 

Because she was not wearing the lenses that day.

 

She had been careless.

 

She shouldn’t have, but she’d forgotten to wear them. It had actually happened a couple of times since she had started dating Dr Watson ( _her mission_ ). Was she doing it on purpose? Did she want John to see, to notice? Was he capable of connecting the dots and see what she really was? Who she really was?

 

Mary told John she wore color lenses because she liked them, and of course he accepted that without any reserves. It was something common. The color lenses were sold because women used them. It wasn’t something strange. (Besides --and she would never admit it to herself-- there was something in her that wanted John to see, to be able to look into her real eyes. Those that were hers, and hers only. Those that were Rosamund’s).

 

That night when they went to the art gallery she wasn’t planning on her people spotting Molly near Baker Street. She wasn’t supposed to meet Sherlock until the Christmas party. She wasn’t wearing the lenses when they briefly saw each other that night before Molly fled the apartment and Mary went after her.

 

The eyes never lie.

 

What if he had seen something? What if he had noticed? What if he deduced it?

 

She shouldn’t have been so careless with the contact lenses, no.

 

She shouldn’t have been so careless with many, many things.

 

Mary was putting makeup on as she thought of everything. The night she’d been taken from Musgrave Hall. The lies she’d been told. How Uncle Rudy had redeemed himself before dying by confessing to Sigmund that his little sister was alive somewhere. How her older brother had found her, lured her back to him through MI6. How she had sold herself for William ( _Sherlock!_ ) the moment Sigmund had asked for her help.

 

She was about to leave her flat for the Christmas party when the phone went off.

 

It was a text from John: _Please hurry. Sherlock’s being impossible!_

 

The woman pretending to be Mary Morstan left the flat thinking that she shouldn’t worry, no. Sherlock did not notice they had the same eyes that night. He barely noticed her at all. There was no way he had picked up on that detail.

 

She was safe, and would be so as long as she did things the way she knew how to. She’d be safe as long as she kept wearing the contact lenses.

 

She was lucky her brother had been too lost in Molly Hooper that night in Baker Street kitchen.

 

She’d been saved from her mistakes by Sherlock’s deepest flaw.

 

_Emotional context._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your kind comments! As always, it's a pleasure to hear from all of you!


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and self-harm.

_You shouldn’t have trusted Sherlock to behave._

 

The fucking prick.

 

The last couple of days had been hell for Dr John Watson. With Sherlock playing that damned instrument at all times, it'd been impossible for him to get a moment of peace, let alone any decent rest.

 

He could have gone to Mary's, but he was worried that his friend's behaviour was a symptom of something worse than the lack of cases and proper intellectual stimulus.

 

(Yes, it was something worse.

 

No, John did not imagine what it was.)

 

It had crossed the physician's mind that Sherlock could be on the verge of relapsing. He knew his history of substance abuse, and as a medical professional he had a broad understanding of addict’s behaviour. He wondered if Sherlock wasn't close to making a hole in the wall with his fist because he was craving. Perhaps the forty-hour long violin concerts were the healthiest way he had to avoid using. Only God knew what was going on in that head, but Watson didn't want to leave him alone. Even if it cost him his rest.

 

(Yes, Sherlock was craving. But John would have never been able to guess exactly what it was that the detective was dying to have.)

 

The day of the Christmas party, however, John was on his last nerve. He couldn't take it anymore. None of it. He was a patient man, he tolerated most of the shit Sherlock put him (and everyone) through, but he didn’t know how much more he’d be able to stand. It didn’t help that he was nervous about Mary meeting all of his friends, or that Mary would arrive close to the time the party started because she had some things to do. But the biggest stone in John’s shoe at the moment was Sherlock’s swinging moods.

 

After only God knew how many days avoiding sleep, that morning Sherlock had succumbed to such a basic human need for less than an hour. He had told John he had to stay alert and wake him if that happened, that he was to storm into his room and shake him away the minute he heard him stop playing the fucking violin. It was important, Sherlock said, vital to an experiment he was conducting, and as he neared rock bottom he needed John’s assistant in staying awake more than ever- otherwise the experiment would fail. And that was a failure Sherlock admitted he was in no position to afford.

 

John was in the kitchen drinking a cuppa when the music stopped abruptly. He went to Sherlock’s room and, in a very calmed manner, checked that he hadn’t broken anything when he collapsed on the floor. After making sure the detective was only sleeping, John closed the door and left him there. He needed the quiet, the silence, the peace, and Sherlock needed to fucking sleep once and for all, or something would break inside that massive brain of his. All experiments be damned.

 

He was mad when he woke up, and of course everything was John’s fault. But his anger was like nothing the doctor had seen in his friend before. He had never reacted to anything like that, and the way he spoke to John, the things he said, the fury in his blue eyes… John couldn’t understand exactly why it was so important that he stayed away, what was it that  he was trying to prove, that which he had ruined by letting him sleep on the floor for a little over an hour.

 

It all went downhill after that.

 

The ‘nap’ (if collapsing on one’s bedroom floor for eighty minutes could be called a nap) had renewed Sherlock’s energy. He channelled it by playing the violin without a single pause, and John could have sworn he could see the blisters in his fingers start to form, the blood where the vessels had broken. He didn’t want to speak to the doctor or be spoken to, the music his hiding place from whatever thoughts were tormenting him.

 

John remembered his words from the day before: he wouldn’t be in attendance to the party. He’d said he’d stay in his bedroom while the rest of them carried on that stupid celebration (Sherlock’s opinion, not John’s). The doctor began setting up some more decorations and double-checking everything for the third, fourth time. Perhaps that would upset Sherlock enough to make him want to retreat to his room before people started arriving, to hide there with his violin, maybe even give in and sleep.

 

(John was actually worried the cravings would get worse if he kept on avoiding sleep. Little did he know, sleep only made Sherlock’s craving a lot worse).

 

By five Sherlock was still there, playing that damned instrument. By six he had showered and changed into fresh clothes. He’d even shaved. He didn’t look like someone who would be hiding in his room soon and pretend there weren’t seven, eight people celebrating Christmas in the sitting room.

 

It looked like he would stay for the party. And perhaps he was being selfish and a terrible friend, but John hoped against hope that he weren’t.

 

“People will start arriving soon,” he commented casually over whatever thing by Mozart or Beethoven Sherlock was playing. “I’m sure you’d want to be where they won’t bother you when that happens. I know how much you hate having people over if they’re not clients.”

 

“If you know that,” Sherlock said in a calmed tone, his fingers still working the instrument impeccably “you wouldn’t have let your girlfriend throw a Christmas party here.”

 

“It’s my flat too, you know,” John pointed out. “I paid half the rent.”

 

“Your girlfriend’s flat is bigger, she lives in a better area, you feel more comfortable there. And so does she, judging by the fact that you only brought her over once.” If he was remembering the situation in which Mary and John had found him and Molly that night, his facial expression did not give it away. “You are letting her throw the party here because you want me here. You want me in attendance. You want me to socialize with her, maybe even become friends with her.” He said the word ‘friend’ with a certain disdain.

 

“And so you will just do that. Stay,” said John.

 

“Consider it your Christmas present, Watson.”

 

John was about to reply when he heard his phone go off. Maybe it was Mary. He wished it was Mary letting him know he’d be over soon. Everything was a lot more bearable when that woman was around, and perhaps her no-shit attitude would keep Sherlock in place. Perhaps that would prevent him from deducing, humiliating or hurting people with his manners.

 

(Perhaps Mary would know what to do if Sherlock did anything to deduce, humiliate or hurt poor Dr Molly Hooper.)

 

It wasn’t Mary, it was a former colleague wishing him happy holidays. He texted Mary himself, half-panicking, half hoping that the doorbell would ring anytime soon and that it’d be her.

 

_Please hurry. Sherlock’s being impossible!_

 

He put the cellphone away and distracted himself with some of the finger food he and Mary had ordered, the words he’d really wanted to text her still echoing in his mind: _Please hurry. Sherlock’s going to stay for the party and I’m scared he’ll do something that’ll hurt Molly._

 

Because John Watson was no idiot. He knew that if Sherlock was staying it had little to do with whatever John had wanted in the first place. In fact, John was sure Sherlock knew he no longer wanted him at the party.

 

He was staying because of Molly. Because John had told him the day before that he had to be careful with her.

 

The fucking prick.

 

By the end of the night, John Watson would prove to himself that he had actually observed more than he was given credit for.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a little bridge chapter that I think will make the upcoming one flow better. I am swamped with work and I still get depressed from time to time, but I think of this story every day and I'm working on it with such passion that I think no other writing project (professional or personal) has ever meant so much to me. I know it's a short chapter, but it's something to introduce you to the state of mind Sherlock will be in before the party. I hope you liked it. And thank you for always showing me so much love and support.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder, drug use and self-harm.

_You shouldn’t have gone to your room. You shouldn’t have fallen asleep. Weak, that’s what you are. And you are letting every ounce of your weakness crush you._

 

But it wouldn’t have made much of a difference if he had gone to his room, right? He’d collapsed on the floor, like he knew he would sooner rather than later. He knew his own body, knew the mechanics of it. He’d been nearing the end of his rope that morning, could feel it in every bone, in every vein and artery and muscle of the vessel that housed his consumed, tortured mind.

 

She had him cornered. The drugs that would give him temporary peace and bliss on one end. His Mind Palace invaded by Molly Hooper on the other, completely inaccessible if he wanted to preserve his sobriety, his integrity. His sanity.

 

He knew it from the moment he met her.

 

She had the ability to make him want, and crave, and feel.

 

And she wanted, craved and felt, too. Because she was alive. She was human. There was a heart beating between that girl’s ribs, pumping blood into her veins. She breathed, and talked, and thought, and _starved_ herself, and lived inside his head. She was something he could not control, something he couldn’t take for a while, until his brother found out (he always did) and decided that it was enough, that he had to get clean.

 

Those were the worst kind of addictions. The ones you don’t go seeking. The ones that seek you. The ones that represent not an outlet, an escape, some sort of release, however brief and meaningless. The ones that could become a prison. And wasn’t he already a prisoner? Didn’t she have him cornered? Was he where she wanted him? Did she ever want _this_? This sickening, twisted man he was, fighting the mere thought of a woman that haunted him with her big, brown doe-like eyes and her small lips and breasts and her smile and her kindness. Always for him. Always ignored by him, or so she thought. Her silent pleas for help that no one was listening to.

 

But now he saw her. Now he was listening. And he couldn’t unsee or unhear her, what she really was, what she was going through. What John Watson and his girlfriend had noticed before he did, because they had been paying attention. Because they had not been busy trying to save themselves from an addiction worse than what any substance offered.

 

The state of mind he was in, this madness, this desperation, it made him feel more doomed and more alone than anything else he had ever taken, inhaled or injected. He had never hated himself as much when he was using, not the way he hated himself now that he was mere seconds away from falling into the abyss.

 

He knew he’d fall, it was a matter of time.

 

The problem was he had not made up his mind as of how. Would he jump? Or would Molly Hooper push him?

 

Cocaine and heroin couldn’t be worse than what she could do to him.

 

Drugs couldn’t be worse than what they could do to each other in the state they were both in.

 

And that was the last thought he had had before he collapsed from sheer exhaustion, the vessel that contained his mind betraying him.

The doors of his Mind Palace opened, and he was sucked in, the decision made for himself by his very own anatomy, tired of waiting for either the pleasure and relief the drugs could have provided or the decision on his part of giving in, once and for all.

 

Did he jump? Was he pushed?

 

He found that it mattered very little. He was already there, swimming against the darkness, his fear, his very own human desire. Swimming against _her,_  collapsing into her, meeting with the Molly Hooper that he’d created in his fantasy world but that now would taste like _the other one_. He’d fucked the girl in his Mind Palace a thousand times, but it was the fact that he had kissed the real one twice that made her more dangerous. More powerful. Because now he knew. He knew what it was like, how she felt like, almost weightless, all bones, trembling under the touch of his hands, holding onto him, letting him hold onto her. And then leaving abruptly, crying and shaking, leaving him with the realization that things were more fucked up than he’d assumed.

 

 _They_ were both more fucked up than everyone would have assumed.

 

Even themselves.

 

His state of agitation when he woke up, the hatred he felt at John for not waking him up, for letting him stay trapped in his mind… All that anger was directed at his friend because he wasn’t brave enough to direct it at himself. Because there was no way that he would admit to himself that he had a name for the things he was feeling, but that he’d rather they remained unnamed because he was a coward.

 

Because sociopaths didn’t care for others now, did they? Because he couldn’t want, he couldn’t crave, he couldn’t need. He couldn’t love. This had to be something different, something else. A more elaborated, fucked-up substitute for the drugs they had succeeded in exorcising from his body. The body he didn’t tolerate inhabiting. The body he wished he could escape from, and yet he was doomed, trapped, the same way he supposed she felt trapped in the body she despised.

 

The imaginary body he held close to him that afternoon when he collapsed. The one that felt like the body he’d held that night at Baker Street before they were interrupted. He didn’t fuck her, she didn’t offer. He realized then that _that_ should have never worried him. His brilliant mind would have never let him trick him into believing Mind Palace Molly Hooper was enough. He’d had enough, he’d had the real her, and at the same time he was sure that he’d never have enough of her  -- which didn’t make sense, and it infuriated him, but it was somehow the least troubled of his thoughts.

 

He did in his Mind Palace what he would have never allowed himself to do outside of it, and it was that action that he should have feared more. That was a drug worse than heroin, the cocaine, _and_ sexual desire.

 

_Caring is not an advantage._

 

And he cared. God, he cared so much it hurt. It could destroy him. It _was_ destroying him. But as long as the damage was happening _only_ inside his Mind Palace he was safe, right? At least safer than he would have been outside of it. Safer than he had been that night at Bart's, at Baker Street. In Molly's arms. Surrounded by her warmth, her bittersweetness. Her sadness. The anger toward him that he knew he deserved. Her desperation.

 

All of the unnamed things he didn't dare name. He knew because he felt them, too. And with such terrible, beautiful force that he thought his body would react to it, that the fight or flight response would make him wake up, escape that torture.

 

Save himself.

 

But there was no possible saving now, was it?

 

Fuck him, and fuck his weakness, and fuck John Watson for letting him sleep, and fuck the drugs for not being as tempting as she was, because if they had been he would have shot up already, he knew he didn't have that much self control, he wasn't using because he didn't want to, because all along he had wanted this to happen, and he had let it happen, and fuck his body and fuck his Mind Palace.

 

And fuck her.

 

_Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock. But you care. You do care for me. You care so much your mind's become a minefield. And yet you're here. You came to see me. You came for me._

 

It was true.

 

He held her in his arms, kissed her eyelids shut and tasted the tears. He kissed her cheeks, her forehead, her lips. And he _listened_. He listened to every fucking word she said, and came undone as they held onto each other.

 

He touched her ribs, felt the bones, the cold skin, all the symptoms of her anorexia. All of what he had ignored for far too long. She didn't shy away, she didn't stop him. She let him touch, and see, feel what he'd done to her, what he'd been letting her do to herself. He broke down because he understood she wasn't so different from him. He understood, finally, what they were both doing to each other.

 

And he cried because he was allowing himself to be comforted by her, or the version of her he'd so carefully created and housed within the rooms of his Mind Palace until she took control and claimed the throne and crown. He cried and admitted defeat because he knew there was no way he'd ever evict her from there. He'd have to learn how to live with that, with her there, or surrender to the drugs again. He had no alternative. She had him cornered. It was all about choosing between the lesser of two evils, and he had no idea what his choice would be.

 

 _Choose me. Stay here. Stay with me. You'll be safer here with me than out there with_ her. _You can control me here, you can control what I do. You can fix me, heal me, make me eat. You can't control her. Choose me. Stay with me. I'm more than worth it. I'm worth more than her. It's so much easier here inside your head. It'll hurt, but it'll hurt less._

 

But he didn't want it to hurt less.

 

If it was going to hurt anyway, then what was the point in hiding inside his mind?

 

_Because it's true that you're safer here, Sherlock. I'm queen of the Mind Palace now but I'll let you reign with me. You have control here. Out there, control is all hers. You stand no chance out there. Come hide with me, stay with me. Leave her be, let her starve. You have me, what else do you need? What do you need?_

 

Her.

 

He needed her.

 

He fucking needed flesh and bone Molly Hooper.

 

Damn cocaine and heroin, damn the one in the Mind Palace he had been so scared to face because she'd tell him just this, she'd make him see just this.

 

He fucking needed the real Molly Hooper. The one that was lonely, and sad, and starving herself. The one that was broken, damaged, just like he was.

 

The only difference between them was that she had the control he lacked.

 

Or so he thought.

 

He held Mind Palace Molly in his tired arms for what felt like an eternity, and at the same time he could have sworn she let him hold her just a couple of seconds before she set him free. Before she realized there was no way she could convince him to forget the other one and choose her.

 

Feelings were so fucking confusing, and he was so fucking broken. So fucking done for. Everything he thought he knew, everything he thought he was battling against, it turned out he didn't know anything. It wasn't a matter of whether he'd choose the drugs or his Mind Palace. Nowhere was safe and nothing sufficed. No matter where he turned, he'd always be left wanting and needing more, craving more each time. Craving _her_.

 

It was so much more complicated.

 

_You can have her too, you know? But it won't be as easy as having me. It will definitely be much worse than the drugs. Right now hiding in your head with me is the closest you get to preserving some sanity._

 

But for how long?

 

_You do want to keep away from drugs, right? She's worse than drugs, Sherlock. I'm not as toxic. I'm not as destructive. You stand a chance of getting tired of me, or finding a way to exorcise me from your Mind Palace. Perhaps you'll regain sanity, who knows? Maybe you'll find the way to break me, erase me. You won't do that to her if you give up. Don't give in to her, Sherlock. You won't come back from that. Caring is not an advantage. Don't make it worse by caring for something more real than a ghost in your head._

 

But real was way more dangerous.

 

Real was way more addictive.

 

Real was the closest to vivisection he’d ever be, if the last few weeks were anything to go by.

 

And yet during that hour in his Mind Palace he realised that he wanted _her_ anyway.

 

It was beyond his control.

 

He had lost.

 

He had been broken.

 

He felt, he wanted, he craved.

 

_Oh darling, look what she’s done to you, you’re a fucking mess. Whatever are you going to do with this?_

 

He didn’t know.

 

_You’re fucked, darling. The one outside your mind has got you where she wants you. She fucked you over and you’ve not even done her the courtesy or fucking her once. Or perhaps you did fuck her over. Perhaps you’re even. Yes, I think you are. How can you know that you’re not responsible for what she’s doing to herself, Sherlock? How can you know you actually didn’t fuck her over the same way you used to fuck me in here?_

 

He woke up before he could analyze and deduce every single interaction he had ever had with her.

 

Fight or flight.

 

He was choosing to survive a little longer.

 

He could not have faced the consequences of understanding exactly for how long he had been fucking with real Molly Hooper, the one that felt, and needed, and bled, and starved, and _loved_. The one that was more than a thought in his Mind Palace. The one that was human. More bones than flesh. Closer to the dead than she was to the living.

 

He was mad when he woke up, and of course everything was John’s fault.

 

_But you know it isn’t. It would have happened anyway, with or without John there to wake you up. A second in your Mind Palace would have been enough to destroy you. You spent what? Over an hour there? Look what it’s done to you. Look how weak you are._

 

_Caring is not an advantage._

 

The anger he felt, it consumed him. It was nothing like he had felt before. Nothing like he had let John see before, and in the time they’d been friends John had seen plenty of things no one else could even imagine.

 

The way he spoke to John, the things he said, the anger in his blue eyes…

 

He was out if his mind.

 

Out of his depth.

 

Out of control.

 

But John didn’t understand. How could he? And how could Sherlock explain? There was no point. He didn’t want to even try, didn’t want the doctor to know. It was better that way. It was better if he dealt with this alone, even if he was failing spectacularly at it. Even if he didn’t have the slightest idea as of what to do.

 

It was better if John kept thinking he was craving drugs.

 

It all went downhill after he woke up.

 

He felt a surge of energy after the ‘nap’ he’d taken (if collapsing on one’s bedroom floor for eighty minutes could be called a nap). He needed the violin. The music. The isolation it provided. He knew it’d be the calm before the storm, before he did what he knew that he had to do.

 

Fight or flight.

 

This time he was fighting.

 

(Or at least he’d attempt to.)

 

He played the violin without a single pause, knowing all the while how much John would hate it. It was his revenge, his way of getting back at him (for what exactly, he wasn’t sure. John was not at fault, but it was easier to blame others.) More blisters formed on his fingers, and they began bleeding, but the pain was welcome. He was used to that by now, he was doing this more for it than for the gratification that the music itself brought. He didn’t want to speak to anyone or be spoken to, and so he hid in the music. He hid from everything that was tormenting him. He hid from Molly, he hid from his weakness, he hid from his realizations.

 

He hid from his feelings. From himself.

 

At five thirty he put the violin down and went to take a shower.

 

He had to get ready for the Christmas party, after all.

 

Sherlock shaved and changed into clean clothes. He didn’t say a word to John, but he knew he was texting Mary his surprise that Sherlock was deciding to attend the party instead of hiding in his room like he said he would.

 

He could sense John’s fear. His fear that he would say something inappropriate while in the same room with Molly Hooper. It was a fear Sherlock himself had, and yet the party was something he was choosing not to hide from. He could hide, would hide, from everything else but not from this.

 

He had no idea why was that.

 

All he knew was that he was desperate, adrift, and without any control whatsoever.

 

“People will start arriving soon,” John commented casually over the music Sherlock was playing.

 

John didn’t want him to stay.

 

That alone was enough reason for Sherlock to want to stay even more.

 

He did what he knew best. He blamed John for his decision. It was John that was putting him in this impossible situation. It was his friend that had decided to throw a party at their shared flat. It was him that wanted him in attendance, and he would be staying because his friend was making him.

 

It was all bollocks and Sherlock knew it.

 

“Consider it your Christmas present, Watson,” he had said.

 

But John Watson was not an idiot. John even knew that Sherlock had deduced his friend no longer wanted him at the party, that he was staying because of Molly Hooper. Sometimes Sherlock wondered if John observed much more than he was given credit for.

 

He was playing the same piece by Mozart for the tenth time when Mrs Hudson went up with a tray of something Sherlock was sure he wouldn’t eat.  

 

Five minutes later the bell rang. John’s girlfriend, Mary, was there. And so was Lestrade, a little bit earlier than expected because he had work later and would have to leave in under two hours. And almost at the same time he heard a cab door closing.

 

That had to be Molly.

 

The party was starting.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled a lot writing this chapter. I want to thank everyone that listened to my ramblings and doubts and questions while I was working on this. I can honestly say it did not come out the way I wanted it to. It's not what I imagined, what I envisioned or expected. But it is what it is, it's what flowed freely when I finally decided I was done fighting with it and just allowed it to take me wherever it wanted to go. I think it goes without saying: I'm not happy with it. I hope you like it anyway. I hope it at least shows a little of what is going on with Sherlock and in Sherlock's mind. Thank you for reading.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder, self-harm, mentions of past drug-use, jealous and possessive behavior.

She walked in the apartment carrying two big bags full of presents and a smaller one with a change of clothes. (She had a shift later that night. She always worked holidays. No one cared that she did. _No one cares about you, Molly._ )

 

The other guests were already there when Molly arrived. Detective Inspector Lestrade and John were chatting with a woman in her late seventies -- that had to be Mrs. Hudson, the landlady. And then there was elegant, beautiful Mary. Her green eyes were a perfect match to the Christmas jumper John was wearing. (But weren’t Mary’s eyes blue? Molly remembered thinking once that they reminded her of someone else, although she didn’t know who exactly. She must have been mistaken.)

 

And then there was Sherlock, looking out the window and playing the violin frantically. She pretended not to notice the bruised fingers, the raw skin, the dry blood in his fingernails, barely perceptible to the untrained eye.

 

She’d made the decision to pretend not to care for him.

 

(But she did. Oh, how she cared. How she loved him, how she craved him. She cared so much it was killing her. Molly Hooper was slowly, methodically killing herself over Sherlock Holmes.)

 

_But I won’t let him see it. I can make-believe I’m like everyone else. I’ll fucking show him he’s not affected me. His games can’t affect me. I’m still in control._

 

She smiled shyly at John when he saw her come in.

 

_You can do this. You’re in control._

 

_You haven’t died over him yet._

 

_You’re still alive._

 

_You will not fucking die from this._

 

“Hello, everyone. Sorry, hello. Er, it said on the door just to come up.”

 

Her voice sounded nothing like she felt. It was happy. Sweet, even. It wasn’t hers, and yet everyone believed it was.

 

“Molly, dear, I’m so happy you could make it!” Mary said as she kissed one cheek, then the other.

 

_Why wouldn’t you? You’ve nowhere to go. No one to be with. You’re alone. No one cares, no one wants you, you have no one. You are nothing. And yet here you are, pretending that all of it isn’t true. Or is she asking because she thought you wouldn’t stay alive long enough to celebrate another Christmas? Did she think they would have already found you dead by now?_

 

_I will not fucking die from this._

 

“I have a shift later tonight, but I wouldn’t have missed it from the world,” she lied as Mary helped her put the bags away, behind the couch. Molly exchanged equally disgustingly cheerful greetings with Greg, John and Mrs. Hudson.

 

He was facing the window, and no one else seemed to notice, but Molly could have sworn she heard Sherlock mutter “ _O_ _h, dear Lord. everybody’s saying hullo to each other. How wonderful!_ ”  

 

The consulting detective did not turn around. He kept on playing beautifully, so exquisitely Molly thought that if he continued for another minute she would break down and start sobbing. (Over what exactly, she wasn't sure. All she had in her life were things to cry over, and so it comes a time you just stop crying at all, she supposed. Otherwise you would die from the sheer sadness of it, and she was not planning to let it kill her.

 

_Oh are you not now?_ )

 

“Let me take your scarf and coat, Molly,” John offered.

 

Before Molly had time to thank John, Mrs. Hudson said:

 

“Sherlock, are you not going say hello to your guests?”

 

Molly’s response was automatic, filling the silence resulting from Sherlock’s lack of response:

 

“Having a Christmas drinkies, then?”

 

She didn't know where the words were coming from, or how she was managing to sound so normal, so happy. Almost as if she fit. Almost as if she belonged there. And for the first time that night she wholeheartedly believed that she was capable of doing this. She was perfectly capable of fucking showing him she was this perfect version of what he probably only saw as a broken, shattered, stupid little girl he could use whenever he wanted, for whatever he wanted and for as long as it was convenient to him

 

Molly felt a disconnection from the body she'd grown to see as mere transport for her mind. It meant she was succeeding. She was close to reaching the perfection she longed for. A mind that was finding its perfect shape was finally leaving a body that was defective. She hadn’t stammered once yet, she had a smile on her face so big and so broad her cheeks were actually hurting a little. But it felt natural. It felt right.

 

It felt perfect.

 

She felt perfect.

 

John brought a chair over for her and she sat with the rest.

 

Sherlock kept on playing as if he was alone in the world, and maybe he was pretending that was the case. She wondered if he had begun playing long before the first guests arrived. She wondered if he too had ignored them all like he was ignoring her.

 

(The only difference between her and the rest was that the last time they had seen each other, been in the same room as one another, they had been kissing hungrily, franctically, desperation in the air, his erection pressed against her tight and her face covered in tears as he stole her breath from her like he had stolen everything else.

 

Everything but control)

 

“It’s the one day of the year where the boys have to be nice to me, so it’s almost worth it!” she heard Mrs Hudson said to Mary and Greg. She had no idea what they had been talking about. Losing herself in her thoughts was happening more and more often lately.  

Molly giggled nervously at what Mrs Hudson was saying. She had no idea what it was, though.

 

“Molly, do you want a drink or something to eat?” Mary offered.

 

Molly felt herself tense. She froze. It lasted half a second, and she was sure no one had noticed the look that crossed her face before she forced it away from her features and politely replied:

 

“Thank you. Maybe in a bit.”

 

The music overwhelmed her. Molly could feel its vibrations as if it were buried deep inside her, in her veins, in her blood. It was beautiful and tragic at the same time, and she wished it would stop just as much as she wished it never did.

 

_Just like Sherlock._

 

She needed to remember why she was there, what she wanted to prove. What she was capable of doing and proving.

 

_Focus, you idiot girl. Focus or you’ll lose everything you’re fighting for._

 

And when you’re feeding on your own dark thoughts only, nothing tastes as sweet and marvellous as winning.

She couldn’t lose.

 

Molly quickly turned to Mrs Hudson and, remembering something John had mentioned once he had been with Sherlock at the morgue, she asked the old woman:

 

“How’s the hip?”

 

_Look at you, darling, making small talk. No stuttering. No hesitation. Keep doing this and maybe they’ll all see you as a little bit more normal and a little bit less maladjusted than your usual self. Keep ignoring him, keep showing him he is nothing. He means nothing._

 

_Because you don’t care he hasn’t even turned around to see you._

 

_You don’t care he hasn’t even acknowledged your presence._

 

_You don’t care his fingers are bruised and bleeding because of how long he’s been playing. He doesn’t care how much you bruise and bleed when he plays you, so why would you care?_

 

_But you do._

 

_You care. You fucking care, you fucking idiot._

 

_He’s the reason for your experiment, whether you like it or not. He’s the reason why you’re doing this, no matter how much you tell yourself you’re doing it because of you. You want to be perfect because that’s the only way he’ll have you. What will you do when you realize he will never want you? He’s the reason for your experiment, and the biggest flaw in it, and you’re so fucked up you can’t keep up a conversation with a 76 year old woman that’s kind enough to pretend she gives a fuck you’re talking to her._

Molly tried to refocus, she tried to pay attention to what Mrs Hudson was saying:

 

“Ooh, it’s atrocious, but thanks for asking.”

 

_“_ I’ve seen much worse, but then I do post-mortems.”

 

The words were out of her mouth before she could process them (but did she ever process anything these days? Her body had stopped processing food, maybe it was time her brain stopped processing thoughts before they became speech). Mary, Greg and John stopped talking mid-sentence. Sherlock chose that moment to put the bow down. Without the music, an awkward silence filled the room, so thick Molly could feel it envelope her, suffocate her. She felt so embarrassed, so terribly mortified.

 

“Oh, God. Sorry.”

 

_Sorry won’t erase what you just said. And here we were, Molly dear, thinking for a moment that you could act like a normal human being just for once. You didn’t even last ten minutes without embarrassing yourself and showing them all just how ill-adjusted you are. This is why you’re always alone. This is why you don’t have friends, or family, or a friendly neighbor that stops by from time to time for tea. This is why no one wants you around. Because you aren’t normal. Why can’t you be normal? Yes, go ahead, say you’re sorry now, what good does it make? They've already seen how inadequate you are in social situations. They must already be regretting they invited you out of pity. Yes, say sorry you exist in the same space as they do. You should be sorry you were even born._

 

Her breathing got so elaborate she was sure she would pass out. A lot of that had been happening later, but never in the presence of others. Numb fingers, tachycardia, blurry vision, panic rising in her chest…

 

_Why can't you be fucking normal?_

 

He could hear it. Hear her. Sense _her._ The changes in her breathing pattern that no one else noticed. The tension in her body. How did he not _see_ her before? He had failed to look _and_ observe, so blinded he was by his need for self-preservation, his hunger for the hard-earned control that her mere existence threatened. But now he saw her, even with his back turned to her he _could_ see her, and it hurt so much more than the bursted blisters in his fingers. It hurt more than every single craving he had ever had. It hurt in ways he failed to describe, and he was sure than once he faced her the pain would be so extreme it would nearly kill him.

 

But he turned around anyway, because there was no amount of self-preservation that could fight the fact that apparently he was a masochist when it came to Dr. Molly Hooper. There was no ounce of willpower inside Sherlock Holmes that could help him against the walking contradiction he had become since he’d met that woman.

 

She was even thinner than she’d been the last time he’d seen her, the night she’d run away from his arms and from Baker Street. She was wearing a beautiful dress, but there was nothing beautiful about how fragile, how small she looked, all skin and bones that failed at concealing what she had to be sure was the best kept secret. And for a time it had been, at least for him. But now he saw her, he could really see her, and it was killing him.

 

He wanted the rest of the guests to go away, disappear, wanted to stay alone with her, keep her from the sorrow and the pain and everything he knew he really couldn’t have kept her from. He couldn’t have done anything to prevent this, right? It was a question that was eating up at him with the same voracity she was avoiding eating food altogether. It was so terribly complex, what he was feeling, that he found out he lacked the strength to tear every thought apart to analyze it.

 

All he knew was this primal instinct, this need to hold her in his arms and promise her he'd take care of her like she deserved. Promise her he'd stop the cruelness, that he didn't mean it to begin with, that this was the only way he knew how to protect the heart he denied having, the mind that had now been overruled by her mere existence in his life. He wanted to tell them all to go, leave them alone, and ask her to let him get her the help she needed. Promise her he would get the help _he_ needed, tell her he was starting to believe that maybe, _maybe_ together they could heal each other.

 

Tell her that he wanted her in a way he had never wanted any other thing, that he craved to kiss her eyelids shut like he’d done that afternoon to the other Molly, the one that lived inside his Mind Palace. The one that now reigned it. Tell her that she was the only person alive capable of making him feel so much he felt like dying every time he came in contact with those emotions.  

 

He saw her in that dress, tiny and frail and so heartbreakingly beautiful, silently yelling for whatever help someone could give her. And he wanted to be the one to save her from herself, he wanted to protect her from himself, he wanted to change everything he was and everything he knew that he was sure would only hurt her, only to preserve her. And it was in that fraction of a second that he realized his self-preservation ended where his instinct to protect Molly began.

 

But then he saw the bags partially hidden behind the couch, and the carefully wrapped present at the top of one of them. He saw, but he did not observe, and so what he considered the others’ biggest flaw blinded him, blurred his judgement, the voice inside his head prompting him to take back every single thought that had crossed it in the last couple of seconds, all of that be damned, Molly fucking Hooper be damned.

 

Because he came to the conclusion that whereas he was completely hers, totally defeated and practically ready to throw himself at her feet and beg for mercy, she was not his. Never had been, never would be. Who would want to be with a sociopath? A freak? Who would care about such a seemingly careless, heartless man?

 

Who could ever need him, want him, crave him, _love him_?

 

He had given her control over his body first, then he had let her sit on the throne in his Mind Palace, and now he was realizing that it didn’t matter one bit if he had started to make peace with that. It didn’t matter that he had begun to analyze himself under a new light, convinced that he could be bettered, that he could get better, that he could pay whatever price was necessary to ensure that they would both make it out alive of their own personal versions of hell, safe and sound and together.

 

And so something shifted inside of him, and the walls were up again, the pain mixed with the blood in his veins as if it were as part of him as every cell and nerve in his body were.

 

_She’d never crave you._

 

_She’d never want you._

 

_She’d never need you._

 

_You read it all wrong._

 

_You were mistaken._

 

_Caring is not an advantage._

 

_He’d never love you._

 

_She would only vivisect you._

 

_She wants control, nothing else, nothing more._

 

_It’s all about control._

 

_Do not give it to her. Take it back. Take it all back. Save yourself._

 

_Fight or flight Sherlock, which one is going to be?_

 

_Don’t give her the satisfaction of knowing the effect she’s had on you._

 

_It’s not too late._

 

_She doesn’t want you, she doesn’t care. Show her you don’t care. Show her she is nothing, she means nothing. Just like you probably mean nothing to her. She loves someone else. There’s nothing you can do about it. She’s in her right to love and want and need and crave someone else, someone better, someone more deserving of her. Anyone but you, you freak._

_You were such a vulnerable fool, Sherlock. You let her make you care. And caring is not an advantage._   

 

_Don’t let her see you’re hers. Don’t beg for mercy._

 

_Fight or flight Sherlock, choose one._

 

_Fight._

 

What followed could be only compared to the vivisection he feared, there was no other word to describe it. And the worst part was that not only did he do it to himself, he also did it to her, push her through it simply because she had dared be the person that made the great sociopath want, and crave, and need.

 

A bullet to the chest would have been better than the instant pain he felt. He would have rather been shot. It would have been quicker, cleaner. Perhaps even fairer to the both of them.

 

He let self-preservation take the best of him, and so it was with his usual, expected cruelness that he said:

 

“Don’t make jokes, Molly.”

 

_Avoid being vivisected by her. Do it to her first._

 

And so the vivisection of Molly Hooper began.

 

What Sherlock Holmes did not know was that everything he’d do to her, she’d do to him later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this new chapter and that it was everything you were expecting. I wasn't so happy with it at first, but then I decided this is the best I can do and just accepted it. Now I find that I am really satisfied with how some parts turned out, and I'm even more satisfied with how the next chapter is coming.
> 
> Thank you all for being so patient with me and this story. The following chapter is almost finished, so it won't take as long for me to post it. I don't want to make any promises, but hopefully it will be posted by the end of this week or sometime during the following weekend. It was going to be just one long chapter, but then I felt it worked better if I splitted it in two parts. 
> 
> As always, I'm forever grateful to each and all of you for reading what I write. As some of you know, I'm not feeling very well lately. This story is one of the few things that keep me going. Knowing that I have this fanfic to finish, this plot and these characters to work on, knowing that I need to get them through the darkness, makes me want to do the same myself.
> 
> A little **spoiler alert** now: Sherlock and Molly will get even more fucked up before they begin to get better. But I promise you that they will get better.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for eating disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder, self-harm, mentions of past drug-use, jealous and possessive behavior, thoughts about suicide.

The air was heavy with tension. She could have sworn she was having an out-of-body experience, and at the same time she could feel _everything._ Her heart was beating so fast she feared she’d pass out (it had happened before), and the pain in her ribs was so sharp she would have to sit if it got worse (that had been happening a lot lately as well). The world was spinning so fast, and all of a sudden breathing was the most difficult thing anyone could have asked of her, and yet she felt suspended in time and with no need for oxygen whatsoever. Once again she couldn’t tell whether she was above the earth or in it, if she was still in that room, inhabiting those malnourished skin and bones, or if she was outside of it, someplace else, perhaps in another dimension, observing the falling apart of someone else.

The only thing she knew for certain was that it fucking hurt. It hurt more than anything she could have done to herself, and she knew by the look in his eyes that it was just beginning. She'd seen it before, the cold flames licking those irises. It was the look he had every time he was about to humiliate someone with his brilliant deductions. The same look he had had the morning of her mugging all those months ago, when he had gone into the locker room where she'd been recovering from her assault and launched onto one of his particularly cruel speeches.

The same look he had had that night in the hallway at Bart's after he kissed her, right before he 'thanked’ her for helping him with one of his experiments.

That's how she knew that she was about to be vivisected by him. She was about to be experimented on.

_I'm not an experiment, Sherlock._

_At least not one of yours._

_If anything, I'm my own._

_(Who the fuck do you think you're kidding? If he asked you to slit your wrists open and let him pick at your veins you would say yes, you would fucking do it. You'd do anything he asked of you, you’d give him anything he wanted. You always do. You are pathetic, you ugly, useless excuse of a human being.)_

The only thing he was aware of besides his own twisted, fucked up feelings was her breathing pattern. For some reason he could not comprehend, there was a portion of his mind that was recording her fucking breathing, noting it down in a music sheet like he would the sections of a symphony. He tried to shut it off but to no avail, and he was certain there was a faint, barely audible voice inside his head asking him if he had ever wondered what it would be like to press his ear to her bare chest and listen to the notes that made up her heartbeat.  

It was curious, how his brain worked under such stress. But even more curious was the feeling of betrayal that was voraciously eating away at him right from his insides. He felt so stupid. So worthless. An imbecile. Tricked by silly ideas of throwing himself at the feet of a woman that ultimately was only toying with him, trying to exert control. To show him that she was above him, that he wasn’t everything he thought he was, the genius everyone believed him to be. He was just a man, a simple man made of the same flesh and bones all those other men he found dull and boring. He was not above them, and he could be as easily manipulated, as easily distracted. She had succeeded in making him hyper aware of the body he resented. He was everything he hated about his fellow men, and he had only realized that thanks to the effects that Molly fucking Hooper had been having on him since the bloody day he walked into that bloody morgue and fucking looked into those fucking brown doe-like eyes.

Did that mean she won, then? Did she know it? Did she fucking care what she was doing to him? Did she know how she was fucking him up? Had she planned it all along? This was why she had agreed to go to this stupid Christmas party John and his girlfriend had insisted on throwing, wasn’t it? She wanted to show him she thought he was a puppet on a string. That's what the red lipstick, new dress and perfectly wrapped gift with a perfect bow on top were all about.

Was she enjoying all these mind games? Was she having fun fucking with his sanity? Taking over his mind and thoughts, dictating the reactions of his body, poisoning his blood with lust and feelings, convincing him that maybe he was not a sociopath.

(How could he be one if he fucking cared about her?

How could he be everything he thought he was, everything they believed him to be, if he had _fallen in love_ with her?)

And now there she was, all skin and bones, living proof that perhaps he was boring and weak and dull and could be corrupted by feelings like all the others. Maybe he was capable of caring and loving…

But none of that saved him from being a freak.

That was what Molly thought of him. Everyone else already thought that, why would she be any different? How could he have been so stupid? Someone like him could never be deserving of love.

_Look what she did to you. Look what you did to yourself. Emotional context, Sherlock. It gets you every time._

_You bled for her. You fucking bled for her. You reversed to a state you hadn't even been close to since the last time you went to rehab. The hours you spent mortified because you were scared you'd hurt her, that you had already hurt her. Mortified because you had no idea how to help her, how to cure her, how to take care of her. Mortified because you were scared of failing if you attempted to fix her. And all this fucking time her problem was someone else._

_You have no control over your body or your thoughts. You have no control over your Mind Palace. You're nothing special, you're like the rest, nothing sets you apart, no matter how much you like to think the contrary is true. You let yourself love her. You let yourself care. You are pathetic._

_I will not lose control over her._

_Oh yes you will._

_Fuck, like hell you will._

Molly would never be able to feel anything for him. There was someone she loved in the way he loved her. It hurt so fucking much, but at least it was a secret he would take to his grave. No one else would know that he had succumbed to feelings. No one else would know that he was capable of adoring her so much every breath he took in her presence was excruciatingly painful.

But he would make fucking sure they all knew what Molly fucking Hooper probably thought was the world's best kept secret.

_She loves someone else._

“I see you’ve got a new boyfriend, Molly, and you’re serious about him.”

It even hurt to think about it. It hurt to say it. It hurt. He hurt. But he had to spit out the poison, right? It had been the same with the drugs. She was the same as cocaine and heroin, and he had survived those. He would bleed her out of his body, whatever it took him. In fact, he had decided to start right now, surrounded by his flatmate and landlady and a couple more people. He didn't care. He was done caring.

His words took her by surprise. A bullet to the brain would have shocked her less. It would have definitely felt nicer, of that she was sure. He was speaking to her with such disdain, with such poison in his voice.

“Sorry, what?”

She had no idea if the others had heard her words. In fact, for all she knew the others could have evaporated from the room. She saw no one but Sherlock, felt nothing but his presence, his stare. She wasn't even sure she had said the words, for how could she be sure of which actions were real and which ones were imagined when she was being addressed like that by him?

In fact, how could she be sure this was really happening? Molly fainted so often lately. She had never passed out in front of others, had always been alone in her apartment on such occasions (more proof that she had everything under control. She knew exactly what amount of calories she had to ingest in order to prevent her blood sugar levels to drop spectacularly. Those parts of the experiment she conducted at home, away from privy eyes.) But there always were first times for everything, right? Just like there had been a first time for her posting on a new blog about what she was doing, and a first time for her pushing her fingers down her throat to vomit, and a first time to have the air kissed out of her lungs by Sherlock fucking Holmes, and a first time to go knock on his door convinced that she would fucking show him he couldn't take control from her, and another first time to end up trembling in his arms as they kissed once more and he showed her that no, she wasn't perfect yet, he still could make her crumble with a single look, a single touch.

(Little did she know, that night at Baker Street it had been _her_ touch that had broken _him._ It was physical contact with her that made him come undone.)

But she hadn't fainted. She was wide awake, wasn't she? That moment was as real as the changes in her body everyone noticed but no one commented on. It was as real as the food she ate so she would have something to vomit later. It was as real as her raw, reddened throat. As real as the ache she felt in every vein, cell and muscle that was screaming at her that she was so close to becoming perfect, and yet when he looked at her like that…

His words still echoed in her ears, making her brain hurt. What the fuck was he talking about? Was he mocking her? Was this a cruel joke? She had no one. No one wanted to date her, or touch her, or be close to her. It had always been like that. She wasn't made to be loved. No one wanted imperfect things. Was this his way to show everyone how pathetic she was, how lonely and sad and stupid she was? What the fuck did he want from this? Humiliate her? Remind everyone that the last time a man had asked her out for coffee and had spent time with her pretending to be her friend it had all been a plan to use her? Because that's what she was good for, right? That was the only thing she was good for: she let everyone use her because she was desperate for affection and contact. And now Sherlock was trying to expose that, wasn't he? He was trying to get everyone in that room to focus on her and how impossible it was for her to get anyone to love or want her, how she would die alone and unloved ( _but not soon, not now, not soon. I will not die from this._ )  

_The bastard’s got you where he wants you, doesn’t he? He’s always got you where he fucking wants you. What are you going to do now? He wants you to tell him he’s wrong, so everyone can see how lonely and miserable you are._

_I will not lose control over him._

_Oh yes you will._

_Fuck like hell you will._

Sherlock paid no attention to the two words she’d managed to utter. He didn’t care what she had to say, simply because he didn’t need anything else than his own deductions to see how things were. He sometimes wished he could turn them off, and in that moment he hated that the thought crossed his mind. This was what made him great, and different, and exceptional. The world’s only consulting detective. What kind of power did Molly Hooper have over him that she made him want to be normal, and boring, and dull, and not a genius?

Because if he weren't special, then he wouldn’t have noticed her clothes, and her lipstick, and the carefully wrapped package, and everything about her that screamed she was in love and suffering. Everything about her that screamed the truths he did not want to hear because they shattered the heart he swore up and down he didn’t possess.

Because if he were not everything he was, then he would not be a freak, and then maybe he would be deserving of love and attention. He would be deserving of the only person that mattered. The object of his adoration, the woman that was standing right there in the middle of a room that could have been empty for all he cared. She was the only thing his sense registered. She had what no one else did: his undivided attention.

She had him where she wanted him.

And what was he going to do now?

_Spit the poison._

“In fact, you’re seeing him this very night and giving him a gift.”

“Take a day off.”

John was visibly uncomfortable, as were Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade. Sherlock caught Mary with the corner of his eye and noticed that the woman was staring at him intently. He didn’t care to read her, he knew what she was probably thinking- they all thought the same, didn’t they? He was the monster, the freak. The sociopath. What the fuck did he care what John Watson’s girlfriend thought of him? The woman would probably be gone from the doctor’s life in the next couple of months. (No, she wouldn’t. He had noticed how John talked about her, how his voice changed every time he spoke to her, how he looked and smiled at her. John allowed himself to show the world all the things Sherlock fought so hard to conceal when it came to Molly Hooper. Mary would not be gone from his life in the foreseeable future, just like he knew Molly would not be gone from his own.)

Detective Inspector Lestrade took a glass across the table and put it down near Sherlock.

“Shut up and have a drink.”

He did not want a drink.

He did not give a fuck if the rest of them felt uncomfortable or embarrassed by his behaviour.

His better judgement was numbed by feelings. Jealousy. Loneliness. Desperation. The heart he had always sworn he did not possess was on the verge of breaking. Couldn’t they fucking see it? She was in love with someone else, and in the end he was just another fool blindly searching for the same thing all men did. The only problem was that he was not good enough to have it.

“Oh, come on. Surely you’ve all seen the present at the top of the bag – perfectly wrapped with a bow. All the others are slapdash at best.”

What had she done to him to deserve to be spoken to with so much hatred and disdain, as if she were nothing, as if she had no value?

_You are trash. Can’t you see it? Just accept it and give up, it’s not worth it. You are not worth it, nor is your stupid, good for nothing experiment. It’ll never work. Give up. Go now, go home and cry yourself to sleep or pass out on the bathroom floor and never wake up again. They won’t care. You yourself don’t care anymore, do you?_

She wanted to say something, but she didn't know what. All of her cells were furiously working at keeping her standing there. She would not cry in front of everyone, in front of him. He would not see the consequences of the wounds he was inflicting on her. (Just like she was unable to see the wounds she was inflicting on him.)

Molly knew John and Lestrade had tried to stop him out of respect, and that was more than what she thought she deserved. They were probably just fed up with Sherlock acting like a prick, making cruel comments and ruining every single one of their attempts to include him in the social gatherings he disliked so much. She knew they meant well, but it hurt to be pitied.

She didn't want that. She didn't need that. She only needed her experiment and her precious control and to feel her ribs at night when she was wide awake with her gaze fixed on the ceiling because the headaches were too much and sleep eluded her. She only needed the relief she got from vomiting and the pleasure in knowing that at least she was actually good at two things: her job and her experiment.

(What she truly wanted, what she truly needed, was love and attention. And professional help. But she wouldn't admit it. She was fine, all was fine, she lacked a lot of things and had a lot of problems, but she had control. She did, didn't she? And that was what mattered.)

Sherlock walked towards Molly, and for a second she stopped breathing. He heard it, the change in her breathing pattern. She was tense and scared, maybe because she could see that he had decided to put an end to all of that and show her that he may be a freak and a sociopath and whatnot, but he wasn't letting her win that easily.

He looked at the bag full of presents. It made him want to throw up, a desire that he associated with withdrawals and cravings and darker times in his life.

Molly remembered how her fingers had trembled while she was wrapping the presents, and how much effort she had put into wrapping his until it was perfect. Because he wanted perfect, and no matter how many lies she told herself: she still cared what he wanted. And it wasn't enough because he was still hurting her and humiliating her and using it against her.

_You never learn, you silly girl. When will you learn that you're wasting your time? Waste away once and for all, do yourself a favor and stop trying. Give in, give up.._

_No. I will not fucking die from this._

Sherlock reached for the well-wrapped present. He knew what he was about to do would worsen the wave of nausea, knew that he would hurt himself more than he'd hurt her. In fact, maybe this he was about to do could be considered a suicide mission. He was about to lose control, he could feel it in his marrow. He was about to give her what she fucking wanted.

Because all in all, it turned out he was a masochist when it came to Molly Hooper.

“It’s for someone special, then.”

_It's not for you._

He felt the tension, the anticipation, all the while trying to ignore the voices in his head screaming at him a plethora of things he did not want to listen to. He started with his deductions like he always did, no time for breathing, no time for feelings. Facts. Just facts. That was what he was good at. This was the only real thing he had.

_That's what makes you a freak._

For a brief moment he pictured himself standing on the roof of a tall building, closing his eyes and jumping. And he pictured himself falling, death welcoming him with open arms. No one to break his fall. Just the abyss, and Molly Hooper smiling in his Mind Palace because she had finally succeeded in pushing him.

But the second before the words started coming out of his mouth, he decided that he wouldn't do it. He wouldn't jump. He wouldn't let her see him fall.

He'd push her instead.

“The shade of red echoes her lipstick – either an unconscious association or one that she’s deliberately trying to encourage. Either way, Miss Hooper has _lurrrve_ on her mind. The fact that she’s serious about him is clear from the fact she’s giving him a gift at all.”

_And it's not you, it's not you, it'll never be you._

The silence that fell in the room was once again deafening.

She felt like running to the bathroom to make herself throw up, wanted it desperately. She didn't care what they all thought, she could only think of pushing two fingers down her throat until she felt nothing but release. The experiment would comfort her, it always did when these things happened.

_There goes your brilliant plan, you useless girl. You got presents for everyone to make him see that he's not different, that he can't affect you, that he's the same as everyone else. Even when he thinks he's not. Even when he thinks he can control you. And look at you now, unable to defend yourself while he walks all over you. The gift meant for him caught his attention because you're such an idiot you couldn't help but send an unconscious message to him about how sickly in love you are. You're not even good enough to wrap some fucking presents without making a fool of yourself._

She did not move a muscle, though, and stayed there as he continued talking. No one said a word, although Sherlock noticed that John was terribly anxious. Mrs. Hudson was looking at Molly with what could only be described as pity, and Lestrade was watching the scene with disapproval written all over his face.

That didn't stop Sherlock from doing what he saw as the only logical thing to do in this case: spit all the poison out until there was nothing else, until he was empty, but not before it got to his heart. If he was to get anything out of this excruciating pain he was feeling, then it would be what he had always wanted and what the world had always believed was true: he would become heartless.

“That would suggest long-term hopes, however forlorn; and that she’s seeing him tonight is evident from her make-up and what she’s wearing.”

She remembered how much her hands had shaken earlier when she'd been putting on makeup. How the white and dark thoughts had wandered in and out of her head in turns as she had tried to convince herself that she needed to look the part. Normal, happy women with friends and family wore makeup. Women that felt good in their own skins wore makeup. Women like Mary Morstan. Women like Meena and the 'friends’ from work that had stopped talking to her long ago, when she was no longer interesting enough. That was why she had let Mary talk her into buying that dress as well. Because she had been trying so hard to be what she would never be able to be: beautiful, confident, happy, and loved.

She had been so fucking stupid, but what was new about that?

He saw right through it, though. Even if he was understanding it all wrong, he had seen right through it and was now proving it to her.

He always won, didn't he? Sherlock Holmes always won.

And yet even when he probably fully knew that, he was still kicking her while she was down. The fucking bastard.

He wasn't done yet.

“Obviously trying to compensate for the size of her mouth and breasts…”

A slap across the face would have hurt less.

_It's not working. Your experiment is not working. You're still imperfect. You're still lacking. He can see how you're failing, he can see all your flaws. And he's telling you how imperfect and abominable you are so you know it, too. In case you had any doubts, you're not getting far with this either. You won't achieve any success. You will never have control and you will never be perfect enough._

_And what are you without the experiment?_

_Same as before. Same as always. Nothing. You are nothing._

_He wins. He always wins._

_It seems you’ve won Sherlock, but at what cost?_

He hated himself the moment he said it. He hated every bone in his body, the blood in his veins, the air in his lungs. The jealousy and betrayal he had been feeling quickly turned into guilt and shame and self hatred. He was a bastard. He truly was a bastard. The line he had crossed, the things he had said without thinking… What was he doing to himself? What the fuck was he doing to her?

_Look what you did to her. Look what you've done to yourself._

The emotions on her face became impossible to read all of a sudden. His mind was deliberately choosing to stop deducing her. He was making himself blind to the pain he had inflected. He was selfish like that. He was taking the coward’s way out and protecting himself from seeing the damage his words were causing on someone that he knew had low self-esteem and was battling with anxiety, depression and an eating disorder. What right did he have to say that? What kind of abominable creature did something like this? How could he be capable of saying such horrible things to the one person that mattered the most? And why? Simply because she was bright enough to know she deserved better? Simply because she loved someone else?

_No doubt you are a freak. No doubt no one can and won't ever love you. You are a monster. Congratulations dear boy, you are truly heartless. Soulless._

His brain shut off without his consent and everything else took over. He felt the need to get down on his knees and ask for her forgiveness, tell her that he hadn't meant it, tell her that he only wanted to be loved. That he only wanted her, that he'd always wanted her, even though he knew he couldn't have her. Even though he was a freak. A monster.  

 _A bastard._ _You are a fucking bastard._

He opened his mouth to beg for forgiveness, but he had no chance to speak. Someone else cut him off. The moment he heard her voice he realized that deep down he had been waiting for her to stop him way before things got to this. He had been unconsciously trusting that she would put her foot down before he did to Molly something like what he had just done.

Mary Morstan’s tone was firm. She sounded like a mother scolding her two children, telling them off over a stupid, meaningless fight. With a calmness that would have made Sherlock's brother green with envy, she said:

“That’s enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your kind, encouraging comments. I hope I did not disappoint you. More to come soon!


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